No. 15 Utah State completes 19-point rally, beats LSU in Jamaica

At halftime of its first game away from the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, No. 15 Utah State did not look like the 15th-ranked team in the country. The night’s opponent, LSU, held a 44-30 lead at the break and were dominating the Aggies in almost every aspect of the game.

But in the locker room at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Montego Bay, Jamaica, senior guard Diogo Brito kept muttering a phrase to himself, over and over.

“We’re going to win this game.”

That stubborn optimism and refusal to give up fueled what became one of the best comebacks in recent USU history. Despite being down 19 points in the second half away from home and with one of its best players (sophomore center Neemias Queta) sitting on the bench, Utah State found a way to win.

“That’s who we are as a team,” USU senior guard Sam Merrill said. “We just know that there’s always a chance and that we’ve got to find a way to win and fortunately we did tonight.”

In that first half, LSU made six of its first nine 3-point attempts, were 9-of-18 from deep in the first half and made 51.5 percent of its shots overall (17-33). It was a red-hot shooting performance uncharacteristic of an LSU team that arrived in Jamaica averaging just over five made 3-pointers a game.

Utah State, on the other hand, couldn’t throw a ball into the nearby Carribean in the opening 20, making 34.4 percent of its shots and a paltry 4-of-13 on shots beyond the arc.

“We weren’t being aggressive enough that first half,” sophomore forward Justin Bean said. “Thought (LSU) really set the tone, hit some tough shots, credit to them, they shot out of their minds and we just let them get too comfortable so we just had to really get into them, make them uncomfortable and force some good offensive possessions on the other end.”

“A lot of our mistakes (were) self-inflicted,” head coach Craig Smith said postgame on 1280 The Zone. “It was like, ‘guys, we’re just doing undisciplined, nervous-nelly types of things.'”

In that second half, things changed. Gradually. After LSU tallied its largest lead of 19 points with 16:32 left in the game, Utah State began to chip away. A 4-0 run here, a 5-0 run there. The Aggies were able to make subtle, and not-so-subtle, adjustments that played into weaknesses Smith knew were there.

“Going into the game, we knew that their Achilles’ heel was they turn it over a lot. And my gut feeling this whole game was that we should be pressing and junking (the game) up at times,” Smith said on 1280. “And once we started pressing routinely, that’s when the game really flipped.”

In the first half, the Tigers committed just five turnovers. In the second, that number rose to 11. As a result, LSU didn’t score back-to-back unanswered buckets after that 19 points lead until midway through the second half after USU had cut the lead to seven points. Then Tigers made a recovery run to turn a 62-57 game into a 69-57 contest.

“This one was an emotional roller coaster to be quite frank,” Bean said. “It took a lot of mental toughness. Just staying together is something we preach from the beginning of the season, even into the summer. We had to overcome a lot to get to where we were.”

That blow could have been the end, but the Aggies still refused to go away. Merrill, Bean and Alphonso Anderson teamed up on the offensive end to carry Utah State to the finish line. Over the last 7:56 after going down by 12 again, USU outscored the Tigers 23-9. All of those 23 points came from Merrill, Bean or Anderson.

Merrill had 10 points in the final eight minutes (out of 24 on the night). It was he who made the go-ahead shot with 57 seconds left — an off-balanced 3-pointer off the assist from Abel Porter.

"You don't need the three."

☔️ @smerrill05

"But it doesn't hurt."#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/bf60EByMtb

— USU Men's Hoops (@USUBasketball) November 23, 2019

Anderson showed tremendous poise, making five of his last six shots, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 3:36 on the clock. Bean’s signature play and an initial go-ahead (though LSU briefly took the lead back) came on a fast break started by a Brito steal.

After picking off a pass from LSU’s leading scorer, Skylar Mays, Brito pushed the ball up the court. He then threaded a pass across the hardwood to Bean who finished with an and-one layup which wound up giving USU its first lead of the game 77-74.

“Diogo, he’s always looking up the floor. He’s really unselfish,” Bean said. “I just started to attack at an angle and he threw that thing, threaded the needle, perfect pass and I was just told at the beginning of the second half to just be aggressive, don’t let these guys set the tone so I knew when I got the ball I was going to go up and so I was able to finish it.”

Utah State sealed the game, fittingly, by forcing yet another second-half turnover. Mays, who had 30 points on the night, brought the ball up the court after a missed dagger 3-pointer from Anderson. LSU spurned the idea of using its final timeout in favor of a more chaotic final possession. Fortunately for the Aggies, chaotic is just what happened as Mays lost the ball in the halfcourt and it bounced into the waiting hands of Porter who lobbed the ball upcourt to Bean where the 6-foot-7 forward dribbled out the clock.

Bean finished with his third double-double of the season, scoring 14 points and grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds to go with career-high six assists. It was also his fifth double-digit rebounding game of the season. Merrill and Anderson both finished with 24 points on the night. Merrill led the team in assists with eight while Anderson added six rebounds to his point total. The two combined to shoot 8-for-16 from three, 5-of-7 in the second half.

Next up for the Aggies is North Texas, a matchup that will also take place in Jamaica on Sunday. The Mean Green are off to a rough 1-5 start this season, losing their most recent game by 13 points to Rhode Island in their first game in the Carribean.