USU pulls out road victory, shines in final minutes at Hawaii
Road wins haven’t come very often for the USU men’s basketball this season, so finishing the roller-coaster season with a road sweep may be that much more impressive.
“To end with a road sweep, it tells you our guys are still into it, still playing, trying hard and trying to win,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “It’s something I am just really proud of because we were down and out a few weeks ago. Some people had a us buried — we weren’t going to win another game — and we go out and win three straight conference games — two on the road. I’m really pleased with this group and with the seniors in particular. We found a way to finish the conference season 8-6.”
During USU’s home victory over Hawaii the Warriors out-rebounded the Aggies 48-28, but that was not the case Saturday night.
“The one thing that shows you we are playing awfully hard and trying awfully hard is the boards tonight,” Morrill said. “They had out-rebounded us by 20 in Logan, and we out-rebounded them by 10 here. That’s the thing we talked about so hard with our guys in game prep. I think a day off from running around paid off. We had some energy out there when we had to. It was a fun, fun win for us.”
Junior forward Kyisean Reed led the Aggies in rebounding with 10 boards.
“I told him before the game that he had to have 10 rebounds tonight and he had five at half, and I told him, ‘You’re halfway home,'” Morrill said. “He had a tough time at the line, but he was active out there. We just have to try and keep getting him more physical, but he was active.”
USU’s gritty 61-60 win over Hawaii had its struggles, especially at the free-throw line.
“We were leading the league in free-throw shooting, but it didn’t look it out there,” Morrill said. “We shot some of the most ungodly free throws I’ve ever seen, just not even close to drawing iron.”
The Aggies game into the game averaging just under 70 percent from the charity stripe, but USU shot 12 of 26 from the free-throw line for 46 percent. Freshman center Jordan Stone shot 0 for 5 and Reed shot 1 of 6. Both players air balled a free-throw attempt.
The Aggies will prepare for the Western Athletic Conference Tournament next week as a fourth seed and will face fifth-seeded Louisiana Tech.
“Obviously we want to do well in the tournament, but no matter what happens, we finished the season on a good note,” Morrill said. We’d like to finish it on a really good note by doing well in the tournament. It didn’t look like a few weeks ago that we would end up on the plus side of this thing — that is awfully pleasing.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu