Utah State picks up first loss at Duke

Utah State men’s basketball recorded its first loss on the season with an 85-53 effort at No. 6 Duke in Durham, North Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“We’re a better program than that,” said USU head coach Tim Duryea. “We were extremely selfish offensively and soft defensively and not a performance to be proud of.”

The Aggies are now 4-1 on the year with the loss and the Blue Devils are 6-1 after beating USU in the first-ever meeting before the two teams.

Duke took an 11-point lead into the half and came out firing in the second half to extend its lead. Utah State allowed the Blue Devils to go on a 19-2 run to start the second half which pushed DU’s lead to 57-29.

“It was not really a matter of X’s and O’s at that point,” Duryea said. “It was a matter of giving in mentally … We have to be more mature than that on the defensive end.”

It took USU over five minutes to score in the second when Shane Rector hit a jump shot to end the draught.

Duke responded with a Matt Jones 3-point shot and continued to roll, dominating Utah State in the battle for rebounds and in perimeter shooting.

Duke shot 55 percent during the game and hit 8 of 15 from behind the arc. Four 3’s came from freshman guard Luke Kennard. Kennard shot 77 percent from the floor and was the game’s leading scorer with 22 points off the bench.

“Overall in the first five games, my shot just wasn’t falling,” Kennard said. “My shot fell tonight and then my teammates, they did a great job of finding me when I was open.”

Joining Kennard with 22 points was starting Devils’ point guard Grayson Allen.

“I especially liked Grayson Allen’s reaction to Luke,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “That’s what I love about my upperclassmen, they could not be happier when a kid does well. I thought it picked Grayson up to see Luke starting to hit shots.”

Chris Smith was the only Aggie to score in double figures with 13 points. Smith connected on 3 of 5 from beyond the 3-point line. As a team, USU hit only 3 of 12 attempts from 3-point land.

Elston Jones was the Aggies leading rebounder with only five boards. Amile Jefferson led Duke with 9 boards and as a team Duke outrebounded Utah State 40 to 26.

“We didn’t play our game,” Smith said. “We got into their game and didn’t play anywhere like we knew we could play … We didn’t show up like we normally do.”

Next up for Utah State is another road game Tuesday at Missouri State in Springfield, Missouri.

— kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor