Utah State dominates Air Force at home
With Utah State leading Air Force 34-28 late in the first half on Tuesday, junior guard Shane Rector stood under the basket, just feet in front of the student section in the Spectrum. The referee blew his whistle, passed the ball to the 6’2” guard and began to count. Rector, unable to find any open teammates, decided to call his own number. He bounced the ball off the back of the defender in front of him, picked it up and laid it in, sending the Spectrum crowd into a frenzy.
“I told him he was crazy for doing that,” said sophomore guard Julion Pearre. “He’s that kind of player, he can make plays like that.”
The clever bucket put an exclamation point on a 17-4 Aggie run that turned an early deficit into an easy 79-60 win that moved USU to 10-6 on the season and 2-3 in the Mountain West.
The play almost didn’t happen though. The shot clock had been reset after a whistle and the Aggies had a play called, but the point guard wasn’t aware of that when he took the ball out of bounds.
“I thought there was one second on the clock so I was like, ‘Damn, if we throw it in, we’re not going to get a shot,’” Rector said. “I saw he was turned around and he was sleeping so I caught him.”
The dominant victory ended a poor run of form for USU, who came into the game with a three-game losing streak.
“I knew we were ready to play from yesterday’s practice,” said head coach Tim Duryea. “You come down and see the atmosphere like it was tonight and that was just what the doctor ordered.”
The Falcons offensive output was the fewest points the Aggie defense has allowed since holding Idaho State to 58 points on Dec. 22.
“When you play Air Force your defensive discipline has to be really tight,” Duryea said. “I thought our guys did a good job in that area as far as carrying out defensive assignments, keeping their discipline and understanding what we were trying to take away.”
USU held sophomore guard Trevor Lyons, the Falcons’ leading scorer coming into the game, to just two points. He was 0 of 9 from the field and 2 of 5 from the free throw line.
“I thought the key to the game was the defense out of our point guards,” Duryea said. “Shane and Darius both did a really good job guarding him.”
Senior guard Chris Smith, who was averaging just 10.3 points per game for USU and had connected only once from distance in conference play, had a breakout performance against the Falcons. Smith hit two 3-point shots in the first few minutes of the game, then scored three different lay ups in just over a minute and a half that sparked the run before halftime.
“I thought he had a really good look offensively,” Duryea said. “It’s really the first shooting slump Chris has had in his two years here. Last year he really never had an extended slump. He’s been in one, but to his credit he’s been getting a lot of shots up.”
The Aggies started the second half just as strong as they finished the first, as senior Grayson Moore connected with his brother Jalen for a dunk on the first possession. A layup by Smith on the next possession put USU up by 11. The lead never dropped below double-digits the rest of the game.
“We took a different mindset tonight,” Rector said. “Going 0-and-three in those last games really changes everything. We came out here determined to get a win.”
Jalen Moore led the Aggies in scoring with 20 points and also had six rebounds and six assists, the second time in his career he’s had at least five assists.
Rector finished with 13 points on 5 of 8 shooting. Grayson Moore recorded a career-high nine rebounds in the game.
Junior forward Lew Evans sat out the game with concussion-like symptoms after a hard fall in practice last week. Redshirt freshman Quinn Taylor started in his place, picking up four points and eight rebounds in a career-high 32 minutes.
The Aggies will take to the road again for a matchup against Colorado State on Saturday at 2 p.m.
—thomas.sorenson@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @tomcat340