Aggies stay at No. 17 in AP Top 25
The first in-season AP Top 25 poll came out Monday morning and Utah State stood pat at its preseason No. 17 ranking. Only one team close to Utah State in the preseason poll lost, former No. 16 Baylor, but Ohio State leapfrogged the Aggies from 18th to 16th.
Movement in the top 25 from three teams, Florida, Saint Mary’s and LSU are relevant to Utah State. Those three squads are future opponents of the Aggies and were ranked in the preseason poll; Florida at No. 6, LSU, SMC at No. 20 and LSU at No. 23. Both Saint Mary’s and LSU stayed unbeaten in the first week of play though the Tigers dropped one spot to No. 23 with just a two-point 69-67 win over Maryland while the Gaels moved up two spots, just behind the Aggies at No. 18. The Gators suffered a 63-51 loss to in-state rival Florida State and so fell nine spots to No. 15.
Utah State posted a 2-0 record in the first week of the season. The first game saw the Aggies have a too-close-for-comfort 81-73 win over the upstart Montana State Bobcats. Harald Frey nearly led the visiting Bobcats to a win in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, scoring 34 points in the losing effort. However, USU pulled away late to secure its second season-opening win in as many years against Montana State.
Game two was a much more comfortable win, with Utah State drubbing in-state foe Weber State 89-34 in a defensive night for the ages. The Wildcats shot a paltry 21.7 percent from the floor as the Aggies held an opponent to under 40 points for just the sixth time since 2010 and first since 2014. Meanwhile USU rebounded from a less-than-stellar 37.7 percent shooting performance against MSU by making 55.2 percent of its field goals in the blowout win.
So far this season the Aggies are led in scoring by Sam Merrill. The senior guard is averaging 21.0 points to go with 5.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists. Though it is just two games, all three of those numbers would be career-high averages if held for the remainder of the season.
The only new starter of the season (excluding Kuba Karwowski’s two injury fill-in starts for Neemias Queta), sophomore forward Justin Bean, is second on the team in scoring at 15.5 per night. He has two double-digit scoring performances to his name this season, 13 in the season opener and 18 against Weber State. Bean is currently the leading rebounder on the team, hauling in 9.5 boards per game that include a 10-rebound game against MSU which gave the 6-foot-7 forward his second career double-double.
Next up for Utah State will be the University of Denver (1-1). The Pioneers lost to Colorado State in their first game then downed Utah Valley on Saturday. Later in the week, on Friday, the Aggies will host North Carolina A&T of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.