USU Women’s Hoops hosts Aggie Madness
LOGAN — Utah State Women’s Basketball geared up for its season during its annual Aggie Madness event on Tuesday night.
The event gave fans a chance to preview the team — which is almost a whole new team with only three returning players —in a blue versus white scrimmage. The large turnover in the locker room has not prevented the team from developing chemistry for the upcoming season.
“Everyone’s really together, we are all really best friends,” guard Kinley Falslev-Wickizer said. “None of it is fake, it’s all real. Real relationships that will last forever.”
Falslev-Wickizer said those relationships are translating to the court through training.
“Getting in the gym together and learning each other’s tendencies just really creates it,” Falslev-Wickizer said.
During the Scrimmage, the teams played 4-minute quarters with fans coming down and participating in friendly competitions for prizes during the breaks.
Guard Olivia Wikstrom, playing for the blue team, impressed by hitting three-pointers at the end of the second quarter.
“I have been working on my threes a lot in the gym,” Wikstrom said. “We always have a lot of people in the gym practicing their shot, so we have a lot of good shooters. We are focusing a lot on our defense because we know we can make shots now, so we want to be locked into that aspect of the game.”
The team put on Aggie Madness to bond with the fans. Head coach Kayla Ard told the fans it was all for them as they started the event. That was proven with giveaways and participation opportunities throughout the night.
Along with the scrimmage, the event boasted a $10,000 half-court shot competition where three fans’ names were drawn giving them a chance to win the money if they could drain the shot. Out of the three who shot one fan got close, which put the crowd on the edge of their seats.
Even though some fans were encouraged to shoot half-courters, Ard joked her team doesn’t practice them when asked who on her team would she trust to make one.
“If we have to shoot it from there something went wrong in the game,” Ard said. “We want to be winning by enough, we don’t need them at the end of the game.”
Along with the half-court shots, Aggie Madness had a few other friendly competitions for fans such as layup musical chairs for $500 of Ard’s own money. The squad also gave out t-shirts, and tacos and took selfies with fans. Former professional basketball player Jaycee Carroll gave out a jersey and head football coach Blake Anderson gave away a signed ball.
USU Women’s Basketball starts its season with an exhibition against Fort Lewis College on Friday at 6 p.m. The first game on the Aggies’ record will be against the College of Idaho on Nov. 7.
Featured image from 2021-22 season.