USU Men’s Basketball gears up for long road trip
The most difficult road trip of Western Athletic Conference play awaits the USU men’s basketball team this week.
It’s happened every season since the Aggies joined the WAC, and the trip to Las Cruces, N.M. and Ruston, La., has never been an easy task for. USU is 2-4 on the road against New Mexico State since joining the WAC, but the team holds a winning record on the road against Louisiana Tech (4-2).
USU will be looking to bounce back off a loss against the Nevada Wolf Pack 78-71. Nevada’s victory was the first by any WAC opponent in the Spectrum since Fresno State defeated the Aggies at home in 2007.
USU head coach Stew Morrill is interested to see how his team will respond after a loss with an extended road-trip coming up.
“That’s one thing I said to our guys is you can let this be one loss, or you can let it turn into a bunch more by being mentally out of it,” he said. “We’ve won one road game. That’s what we’ve won. Now we’ve got four chances coming up — three of them league games — but we’ve started playing better on the road.”
Despite the tough test, USU wants to avoid accumulating losses after the tough home loss against Nevada.
“We can’t let this loss create two losses in a row or three losses in a row,” senior guard Brockeith Pane said. “We’re about to go on the road for three games straight, so we have to be ready. We’re about to go to New Mexico State. Those guys are big — way bigger than Nevada — and they’re picked second in the league. We’ve got the top two teams back to back, so we’ve just got to be ready to play.”
USU has a 1-5 mark on the road thus far and two of those losses are against teams without winning records — Pacific (4-10) and Texas A&M, Corpus Christi (1-13). USU’s only road victory this season is against the Idaho State Bengals (3-13).
USU will face New Mexico State (11-5, 1-0) Thursday, and it will be a tall order to defeat the team picked to finish second in the WAC.
Senior forward Wendell McKines is averaging a double-double for New Mexico State and leads the southern Aggies with 18.4 points per game to go with 10 rebounds a night.
Christian Kabongo is averaging 14.8 per game for New Mexico State, but his status as a member of the team has been in question since the team suspended him indefinitely Dec. 13, 2011.
The sophomore sat out two games after his suspension and then went on to play two more, but Kabongo has not logged any minutes or stats since he scored eight points in a losing effort against New Mexico on Dec. 28, 2011.
Despite the tough challenge, Morrill remains optimistic.
“If we’ll stay right mentally, we’ll go out and have a chance to compete in those games,” he said. “You’ve got to compete, and you’ve got to find a way to win and get over the hump. We’ve got four chances coming up. It’s a good group of kids. They’ll respond. I’m real worried about that. They’ll respond and try their rear ends off, and that’s all you can really ask.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu