By the Stats: Utah State in Jamaica

on November 25, 2019 at 7:10 pm

Utah State’s two games at the Jamaica Classic are being combined into the same stats breakdown due to the very busy weekend for USU sports.

The wins over LSU and North Texas were another level of crazy, especially the former. Utah State had to play almost perfect second-half basketball to beat the Tigers and then the Aggies had to overcome 30 minutes of their own incompetent offense to beat the Mean Green.

Without too much further ado, here are the stats you crave. The random tidbits and cool trends that make these two games and the performances therein more unique.

As always, stats are drawn from College Basketball Reference, the NCAA statistics page and the Utah State Basketball media guide. Unfortunately, the more I do this, the more I realize there are quite a few discrepancies in stat totals between the three so I’ve done my best to figure things out and present the most accurate information.

Utah State

The 19-point deficit against LSU was the largest the Aggies have overcome since they trailed Weber State by 18 at halftime on Nov. 14, 2014. USU went on to win that game 72-61
Utah State trailed for a combined 57:20 against LSU and North Texas, only leading for 10:34. Against LSU, the Aggies only led for 96 seconds in total.
The Aggies’ bench outscored the Tigers 36-4 and the Mean Green 34-9, giving USU a bench scoring advantage of 70-13 in the two Jamaica Classic games.
The 68 points on Sunday broke USU’s six-game season-opening streak of 80-point games.
USU’s 7-0 start is the best since 1961-62 and is tied for fourth-best all-time. Utah State started 9-0 in 191-18 and 1938-39, which are the two best starts in Aggie history.
Utah State had just seven assists against North Texas, the second-lowest total in the Craig Smith era. The lowest is six vs BYU.
This season in the NCAA, teams are a combined 31-221 when recording seven or fewer assists, a 0.123 win rate which is the equivalent of a team that wins three games in a 30-game season.
Thanks to the seven-assists outing against North Texas, Utah State fell from seventh in the nation in assists per game to 20th. USU is second in the NCAA in total assists with 125. VMI’s 136 is the only higher total.
The point differential for Utah State right now (+167) is the best of any Aggie team since 2010. The only other higher than +60 is last year’s team (+142).
Utah State now ranks sixth in free throw attempts (173) and third in free throws made (132). The Aggies are 41st in free throw percentage (76.3).

Sam Merrill

Merrill had 24 points on Friday, tied for most in that game with Alphonso Anderson. He also had eight assists. It’s the second time in his career that Merrill has recorded at least 24 points and eight assists. Last time he did it was Jan. 30, 2019 when he had 29 points and eight dimes against San Jose State. The only other Aggie since 2010 to have a 24-point, eight-assist game is Preston Medlin who achieved the feat against Texas-Arlington on Dec. 20, 2011, with 27 points and eight assists.
Merrill went both games without making a single 2-point field goal, going 0-for-7 inside the arc. He went 5-of-11 from three, though all five of the makes came against LSU.
Prior to the Jamaica Classic, Merrill had only one game since the start of his junior season where he had taken at least three 2-pointers and missed them all. Now he has three such games in that span with 0-for-3 and 0-for-4 games against LSU and North Texas, respectively.
Merrill’s zero field goal game was the first of his career. His five points were the lowest since Jan. 1, 2018 and snapped a 29-game double-digit scoring streak which was two games away from tying for 10th-most all-time at USU.
In his career, Merrill now has 12 games with five or more 3-pointers made. Since 2010, the next closest are Koby McEwen (8), Brian Green (6), Preston Medlin (6) and Brock Miller (5).
Merrill is now shooting what is by far a career-worst 30 percent on 2-pointers. Meanwhile, he is also making what is by far a career-best 51.5 percent on 3-pointers.
Among players who have attempted at least 30 threes this season, Merrill ranks 14th in 3-point field goal percentage. The leader is former New Mexico guard and current Oregon Duck, Anthony Mathis (64.5 percent).
Merrill moved up a few all-time lists
- Career Minutes Played: 9th (3.472), passed Nate Harris (3,422)
- Career 3-point Attempts: 4th (575), passed Reid Newey (572)
- Career Steals: T-10th (105), tied with Jeff Anderson.
This season Merrill is averaging 1.6 points, 4.7 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game. The latter two are career highs by a decent margin. Merrill is one of 15 players in the NCAA averaging 16.5 points, 4.5 assists and 4.5 boards. Of those players, Merrill has the lowest turnover average (1.3)

Justin Bean

Bean recorded his third and fourth double-doubles of the season with 14 points, 12 rebounds on Friday and 14 points, 13 rebounds on Sunday.
With six assists in his Friday performance, Bean joined Tyrn Flowers (Long Island), Cameron Krutwig (Loyola IL) and Sam Sessoms (Binghamton) as the only players this season with games of at least 14 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.
If Bean held his current average of 11.4 rebounds per game through a 35-game season (USU has 31 games scheduled, same as last season where USU played an additional four postseason games), he would finish with 400 rebounds. That would be second-most for an Aggie in a single season behind Cornell Green’s 403 in 1959-60.
So far, Bean is averaging 4.0 offensive rebounds per game. In Mountain West history, only five players have held such an average for an entire season (Cheikh Mbacke Diong of UNLV is currently averaging 4.6 offensive boards this season).
- 4.7 by Aerick Sanders, SDSU (2003-04)
- 4.1 by Marcus Slaughter, SDSU (2005-06)
- 4.0 by Pierce Hornung, Colorado State (2012-13)
- 5.0 by Ryan Watkins, Boise State (2013-14)
- 5.9 and 4.5 by AJ West, Nevada (2014-15 and 2015-16)
Since 2009-10, the highest offensive rebound average for a single season at USU is 3.1 by Kyle Davis in 2013-14.
Another reminder that no Utah State player has averaged double-digit rebounds since Mike Santos in 1976-77.

Alphonso Anderson

With 24 points on Friday and 19 points on Sunday, Anderson led the Aggies in points at the Jamaica Classic with a 21.5 point average. Each total was either a team-high or tied for the team high in points.
This season Anderson has 103 points off the bench. That ranks second in the NCAA in points for a reserve player. Only T.J. Weeks of UMass has more (105). Both have played seven games.
In other stats among reserve players through their first seven games, Anderson currently ranks
- 2nd in free throw attempts (36 or 5.1 per game)
- 6th in free throw percentage, min. 20 attempts (86.1)
- 7th in rebounds (40, or 5.7 per game)
- 7th in minutes played (172 or 24.6 per game)
- 22nd in steals (10 or 1.4 per game)
- 24th in field goal percentage, min. 30 attempts (56.9)

Diogo Brito

Brito had three steals against North Texas and two against LSU. It extended his streak of multi-steal games to five.
Since 2010, Brito’s 14 three-steal games are the most by any Aggies. Merrill is the only player with at least 10. Five players on the current Aggie roster have had at least one game with three steals (Brito, Merrill, Anderson, Bean, Neemias Queta).
In 189 minutes played this season, Brito has only seven turnovers. Only 25 players in the NCAA this season have played as many minutes and have fewer turnovers.
Brito is second among all reserve players in total steals through seven games with 16. Only Jason Wade’s 22 (Old Dominion) is higher.

Brock Miller

After making 7-of-15 threes against Denver and scoring a career-high 27 points, Miller is 6-of-24 on his 3-point attempts (25 percent). In the two Jamaica games, Miller was 1-of-5 from deep.
The 27 points against Denver account for 36.5 percent of Miller’s total points (74) this season.
Without the Denver game, Miller’s points per game average would drop from 10.6 to 7.8 and his 3-point percentage would go from 34.0 percent down to 28.1.
That 34.0 percent mark on 3-pointers is currently a career-worst, down from 35.4 percent last season. Miller is attempting a career-high 6.7 threes per game. His 3-point attempts account for nearly one-third of USU’s average attempts per game (21.0).
Though obviously struggling from beyond the arc, Miller has expanded his game, taking a career-high 3.6 shots inside the arc this season; up from 1.8 in 2018-19 and 1.4 in 2017-18. Miller is also making a career-best 48.0 percent of those 2-point shots. In his first two seasons, Miller made just 40 percent of his 2-pointers.

Abel Porter

Porter continues his statistical struggle after a historic three-game start in assist-to-turnover rates among USU guards. In Jamaica, Porter scored just seven total points, turned the ball over six times and had only four assists.
Despite his one point in 33 minutes against LSU, Porter was a +2 for the game in on-court plus/minus
Late against North Texas, Porter fouled out, his third career disqualification via fouls. He was the second USU player this season to foul out (Diogo Brito fouled out vs Montana State).
Porter played just 15 minutes before fouling out. He joins six other Aggies since 2010 to foul out while playing 15 minutes or fewer.