USU opens up WAC play with win over Hawaii

The Hawaii Warriors men’s basketball team wouldn’t go away easily, but the Utah State Aggies found a way nonetheless.

In what was a close game for the majority of the forty minutes, the Aggies (11-5, 1-0 in Western Athletic Conference play) pulled away for an 86-80 victory in the Spectrum Thursday night.

The Aggies were fortunate as they had the support of 8,053 fans, were beat on the boards, 24-28, and were able to get 41 looks from the foul line.

“I’m not going to feel bad about a win,” Utah State head coach Stew Morrill said. “(Hawaii) played very well (and) we’ve got to play a lot better on the defensive end.”

In the first half the Aggies were 5-of-6 from the free-throw line, while the Warriors were only 2-for-2.

The second half was a completely different story. Utah State’s strong post play-particularly from freshman big man Tai Wesley-allowed them to end the game 31-of-41 from the charity stripe.

“We did really well on dominating the paint,” Aggie forward Stephen DuCharme said. “We didn’t do as well as we should have on the rebounding side of the game and their offensive rebounds kept them in the game.”

Warrior head coach Bob Nash was asked his opinion of all the fouls called in the second half.

“That’s not for me to get into,” Nash said. “Referees get paid to do a job and I thought for the most part they did a decent job. It was our inability that gave (Utah State) some and-ones and cost us.”

Wesley finished with a game-high 27 points, shooting 7-of-8 from the field and 13-of-16 from the free-throw line.

Right behind Wesley was Aggie senior guard Jaycee Carroll. He tallied 26 points thanks to an 8-of-11 performance from the field and 6-of-8 on free throws.

It was up and down in the first half as the lead changed 12 times. Wesley opened the game by scoring the first eight points for the Aggies, but the Warriors were right with Utah State, never falling behind by more than four points the entire half.

The Aggies were aided by a 63 percent shooting performance from the field.

Aggie junior DeUndrae Spraggins gave the hosts a big boost five minutes into the second half. Hawaii’s Riley Luttgerodt stole the ball and appeared to have an easy fast-break layup on the other end. Spraggins sped up, made a timely jump, and made a crowd-pleasing block to deny the Warriors two points.

The play was replayed multiple times throughout the remainder of the game on the jumbotron, each time getting an ovation from fans.

The Aggies maintained a five-point lead for the first 10 minutes of the second half before pushing it to six with 10 minutes left. DuCharme free throws pushed the advantage to eight points, followed by a Carroll 3-pointer to stretch it to 11 points.

-samuel.hislop.aggiemail.usu.edu