Brito, Merrill lead Aggies into MW title game
LAS VEGAS — Utah State got back to playing ball the way it wants to and it paid off big time with a dominating 85-60 win over Fresno State, punching its ticket to the Aggies’ first-ever Mountain West title game.
It looked as if the Monstars gave Utah State basketball its talent back prior to tonight’s matchup with Fresno State. It would be hard to recognize the Aggies on the court having watched last night’s game. Instead, the team that was on the court was the same one that won the Mountain West regular season title.
“There’s something we work on a lot in practice called stop and score,” junior guard Diogo Brito said. “Today that was huge for us. Getting stops and being able to convert almost every single time.”
Opening up the game on a 14-6 run set the tempo for what was about to happen over the next 35 minutes of game time. Utah State showed an aggressiveness that it didn’t have at all in the first half against New Mexico; and it was led by none other than the conference player of the year. But in typical fashion, he was quick to credit his teammates.
“I thought we did a great job moving the ball,” junior guard Sam Merrill said. “We hit shots. We finished at the rim. Got a little sloppy there in the second half. But, yeah, you could definitely make a case for that being our best overall game this year.”
Merrill went straight at the Fresno defense, scoring nine points in the first eight minutes of play. He never slowed down from there, scoring 20 points within his first 24 minutes of play.
USU guard Sam Merrill goes for a layup against Fresno State. Merrill had 22 points on the night. – Photo by Savy Knapp
Even though Merrill ended up with a game-high 22 points, the Aggie bench made all the difference for the second consecutive night. Brito had another monster night, scoring 20 points and pulling down seven rebounds to lead all Aggie reserves. This all coming after a poor first half in the New Mexico game one night ago. In his last three halves he’s played like the runner up for sixth man of the year.
“I’ve got to give some credit to the bald guy over there, our coach,” Brito said of Aggie head coach Craig Smith. “He came to me and we had a little talk and that really made me, like, just look forward, forget what’s behind you. And ever since then I think just things kind of slowed down and that really opened my game a lot.”
Redshirt freshman Justin Bean also impacted the game for the second straight night, grabbing five rebounds and helping Utah State out-rebound its opponents by a margin of 43-29. Overall, Utah State outscored the Bulldogs 27-9 off the bench and were dominant with whatever lineup was on the floor.
“Our bench, especially in the first half defensively, when we’re defending by the bench they really help us out and give us energy on the defensive end,” Merrill said. “That gets our offense going. We’re able to get stops and get out in transition, we felt like we had opportunities to do well in transition and we definitely did that today.”
While the Aggies played well offensively in transition, the team was able to keep Fresno State from doing the same. This being part of how they held the top three-point shooting team in the conference to just 19 percent shooting from deep.
“They are fast and electric in transition,” Smith said. “And I thought we did a really good job getting back and eliminating, for the most, part easy baskets in transition.”
For as good as Utah State was at preventing this from happening, Fresno State wasn’t able to capitalize on open looks.
“We defended well, but they also missed some open looks,” Smith said. “And sometimes that happens. And that’s the beauty of sport. You just don’t know — you have an idea what to expect.”
Utah State center Neemias Queta goes for a block against Fresno State guard Braxton Huggins. – Photo by Savy Knapp
Another advantage the Aggies had coming into the game was its ability to score points in the paint against a Fresno State team that doesn’t excel in that area of its game. Utah State exploited that mismatch right from the jump and the team did well to get its big men involved early enough to set the tone. Freshman center Neemias Queta had his tenth double-double of the season with 10 points and 13 rebounds. Early in the first half the Aggies were dominating Fresno State in the paint, scoring 16 points in the paint while Fresno had just 17 points total.
With Utah State earning the opportunity to play in its first Mountain West tournament title game tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 mountain time, all eyes will be on an already impressive season for the Aggies to continue to get even better.
“I feel that we want to cut down the nets tomorrow,” Merrill said. “We want to win a championship. We don’t know what’s going to happen on Sunday. But fortunately we have a day in between. So we’ll just focus on tomorrow. And, like I said, our main goal is to cut down some nets tomorrow. That the would be pretty fun. So we’re going to play like it.”
Dalton Renshaw – @dren_sports