USU wins in the trenches
With Saturday’s 58-46 win over California State University at Fullerton, the USU men’s basketball team has achieved its best start in school history with a 20-3 record and has now won 21 straight games at the Spectrum. But the first half of the game didn’t go as smoothly as it could have.
USU center Dimitri Jorssen said one reason was the Aggies had beaten CSF Feb. 2 at the Titan Gym, 76-52.
“It’s hard sometimes when we beat a team at their place to get all excited,” Jorssen said.
Another reason was the number of fouls called – nine, with five on the Aggies – in the first six minutes of play.
“Tonight got scary,” said senior forward Shawn Daniels.”The refs were calling fouls earlier that they normally wouldn’t have called.”
“There were a lot of swinging arms and elbows,” said Jorssen, who took a hit in the stomach and had to leave the game for a minute. “It was physical down there.”
Another reason for the troublesome first half was the defensive strategy of the Titans.
“They were triple- and all-teaming us,” said Jorssen.”It was tough.”
Head Coach Stew Morrill said CSF did what he expected them to, and it got the Aggies out of sync.
“Fullerton’s game plan was excellent,” he said. “They played junk defense, and we didn’t quite have the energy level up when we needed it.”
“The first half of the game they were playing us funny,” Daniels said. “We had to get used to their defense and find open spots.”
Although the Aggies started the scoring with a field goal from Bernard Rock, who scored 10 points in the game, they lost the lead quickly on a 3-pointer from Titan Josh Fischer and had a hard time getting it back. USU continued to trail CSF by six points at the most, until Jorssen, whose 10 rebounds tied his season record and were one short of his career high, scored a tip-in with 12:25 left to make the score 13-12.
What followed was back-and-forth scoring from both teams, with neither seeming able to take a commanding lead.
“It was like a bad horse game,” Morrill said.
The Aggies didn’t lead by more than two points in the first half until they went on a 10-0 streak with 4:45 remaining, started by a 3-pointer from Thomas Vincent, who scored seven points in the game – one point shy of his career high, bringing the score to 32-22.
Despite trailing for much of the first half, the team was able to finish with a solid 10-point lead, 36-26, and it never looked back. The Aggies kept their lead and held the Titans to a .250 field goal percentage in the second half.
The closest CSF was able to get was within five points. USU led by16 points at one time and was able to finish the game with a 12-point lead, despite hitting only three of 14 treys, two from Vincent and one from Tony Brown in the first half. Forward Curtis Bobb was 0-5 from down town.
“We did just enough to win,” Morrill said.
USU will go on the road for the next two weeks at University of California at Santa Barbara and Long Beach State University next weekend before traveling to Boise State University Feb. 24. The Aggies’ next homestand is March 1 and 3.