Utah State escapes with win, MW title, in Fort Collins
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Utah State men’s basketball team are conference champions. The Aggies clinched at least a share of the Mountain West title with a narrow 100-96 overtime win over Colorado State on Tuesday.
USU head coach Craig Smith, who promised to work as hard as he could to win a conference title during his introductory press conference, said winning at least a share of the regular season title is very rewarding.
“To win a regular season championship, to me, has always been the most rewarding,” Smith said. “Anyone can win a conference tournament championship because you get hot at the right time, win three games in three days, three games in four days and it depends on the tournament. To win a regular season…to do that over an 18-game schedule with all that travel, everything that goes on, you have to be mentally and physically tough. There’s so many other things that go into it.”
Getting the win in Fort Collins ended up being far harder than each team’s record may have indicated prior to tip-off. The middling Rams have long since been eliminated from being contenders in conference and most hopes of an NCAA tournament bid. But that didn’t stop them from trying to play spoiler to the Aggies.
Though the Rams found themselves down 12 at one point in the second half, they fought back to take a two-point lead 86-84 with 59 seconds remaining in the game. However, on the other end of the floor, USU guard Sam Merrill sank a pair of free throws with 19 seconds left to tie the game. J.D. Paige missed a game-winning 3-point attempt and the game went to overtime.
Once in the extra frame, Utah State took over the game. CSU’s Kris Martin scored the first points on two free throws, but a 6-0 Aggie run, punctuated by back-to-back jumpers from Merrill, put the away side in front. The Rams cut the deficit to two points on a couple of occasions, but USU were perfect from the line in the final 30 seconds which helped seal the win.
Merrill scored a career-high 38 points, tied a career-high with eight rebounds and led the Aggies in assists with six (tied with Abel Porter). Of the win and conference title implications it brought, Merrill said “it feels incredible.”
The Aggies had five players overall reach double figures. Quinn Taylor scored 18, the most he’s had in conference play this season. Neemias Queta had 12 points with Justin Bean and Diogo Brito each adding 10 to the score sheet.
Overall offensively, Tuesday’s contest turnout out to be one of the most efficient of the year with the highest field goal percentage of any game so far (60 percent). It was also the fourth time the team has scored 100 points in a game, though the first that required overtime to do so.
On the defensive end of the court, the story was far different. The 96 points allowed was the most all season and it was just the third time the Aggies have allowed an opponent to shoot 50 percent or better from the field (the other two games were losses).
Defensively, we never really had the legs and we had some good stretches for the most part,” Merrill said. “We weren’t great, and they were a really good offensive team. They’re No. 1 in the league in offensive efficiency. They deserve a lot of credit for making a lot of big shots.”
Tuesday was the regular season finale for the Aggies. The 25 wins is currently tied for sixth-most all-time in program history and is the most since the team joined the Mountain West Conference. The 15 regular season conference victories is tied for third-most all-time.
Utah State’s next game will be on March 14 in the Mountain West Men’s Basketball Championship in Las Vegas. If Nevada wins its regular season finale against San Diego State on Saturday, the Aggies will be the two seed in the tournament and face the winner of the seven vs 10 seed game (right now that matchup would be Colorado State and Wyoming). If the Wolf Pack lose, USU will face the winner of the eight vs nine seed game (currently New Mexico and Boise State).