USU men’s basketball fails to close out against Boise State
Wednesday night at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum brought more heartache for the Utah State men’s basketball team as the Aggies lost to Boise State 83-80.
The Aggies battled back after falling behind in the first half and trailing 39-33 at the break. A high free throw shooting in the second half brought the Aggies back, as the Aggies shot a perfect 20-20 from the charity stripe in the second half. That perfect second half free throw percentage brought the Aggies back into the game to take a 61-58 lead. Boise State responded, however, with an 11-0 run to take the lead at 69-61.
From there, Utah State played the foul game to bring the game closer but ran out of time. The Aggies had their chances down the stretch, but gave up three offensive rebounds off of missed free throws by the Broncos in the final minute, which all but sank the Aggies’ chances of pulling off the miraculous comeback.
“We played hard the entire game; great effort… but we have to rebound. That’s what lost us the game,” said senior wing Jalen Moore after the game, referring to the offensive rebounds the Aggies surrendered to the Broncos in the final minute.
Moore led the team with 24 points.
Junior guard Chandler Hutchison led the Broncos with 21 points and six rebounds. Senior forward Nick Duncan and freshman guard Justinian Jessup pitched in 18 and 16 points, respectively. The win was the Broncos fourth-straight over the Aggies and their third straight within the confines of the Spectrum.
Freshman guard Koby McEwen put in 17 points for the Aggies — all within the second half. Senior guard Shane Rector added 15 while sophomore wing Alexis Dargenton came up one rebound shy of a double-double, totaling 11 points and nine rebounds in the game. Sophomore forward Quinn Taylor also had nine rebounds for the Aggies.
The Aggies outrebounded the Broncos 41-40, but it was those three missed rebounds in the final minute which dwelt in the minds of the players and coach.
As in previous games, the youth of the team was also talked about by Aggie head coach Tim Duryea following the loss.
“We’ve had very uneven performances from game-to-game, and within the game… we’ve shown a lot of stick-to-it-iveness to take the lead, but when we grab the lead… we don’t convert,” Duryea said. “We don’t have that true closer so we’re doing this as a team… we don’t know (from which players) shots are coming from, but we’re getting good ones. It’s frustrating.”
Despite the loss, it was not all doom and gloom for the Aggies. Dargenton and Taylor both gave quality minutes with sophomore forward Norbert Janicek out with strep. Fans worried about the team’s perceived lack of a closer should be thoroughly pleased with McEwen’s second-half performance, especially over the last few minutes of the game as he made shot after shot to give the Aggies a chance.
“I thought we had some really good individual performances. I think Rector had an excellent game… you could really see Alexis Dargenton’s confidence starting to grow out there,” Duryea said. “Taylor gave us some really good effort. And McEwen showed some great toughness after a very poor first half.”
McEwen received more great praise from Duryea in the post-game presser, some of which might spell out a bit of the future for Aggie basketball.
“He has the mentality to be a closer. He wants to be a closer. We gotta start leaning that direction late in games.” Duryea said of McEwen. “We’ve got to execute, get our shots and make them. We need to expand our leads.”
The game was the Aggies first in Mountain West conference play and dropped them to 0-1. The Aggies will look to bounce back at Air Force on Saturday at 12 p.m.