Vandals no match for Aggies

After a slow first half, the Utah State men’s basketball team ran away from Idaho 83-58 with a 53-point second half.

Four Aggies finished with double figures with Jaycee Carroll leading the way with 19 points.

Head Coach Stew Morrill said the 30-24 USU lead in at halftime was misleading.

“Actually, we played very well in the first half,” he said. “We just weren’t making shots. We made a lot of shots in the second.”

Cass Matheus scored the first 10 points of the second half in just three minutes for USU while the entire Idaho team mustered only two points in the same span.

Matheus, who had been battling food poisoning earlier in the week, asked to come out of the game after his run.

“I love when a guy plays so hard you have to take him out after three minutes,” Morrill said. “Cass was active.”

Matheus said the sickness is nothing to worry about.

“I was a little weak,” he said. “That’s why I asked for a sub. I felt good, but I got tired really fast.”

The 6-foot-10-inch senior from Brazil only had three shots against Boise, which is why he held nothing back against Idaho.

“I was just going to go all out and see what happened,” Matheus said.

USU shot 47.6 percent from 3-point range for the game. Carroll finished 5-for-8 and Chris Huber went 3-for-4.

“The basketball gods must have been smiling tonight,” Huber said. “I thought I’d go out firing. It ended up being a good night.”

Huber said it felt good to get out of his slump, but it hadn’t really been bothering him.

“As long as we keep winning, I could care less if I score,” he said. “I go home happy.”

The win improved the Aggies’ record to 11-4 on the season and 3-2 in conference play. The loss dropped Idaho to 3-11 overall.

Morrill said that despite the Vandals’ struggles, he never expects it to be an easy win over them.

“They’re always going to play hard,” he said. “That’s what Idaho does. It was nice to get a comfortable lead.”

Nick Hammer started in place of Durrall Peterson at small forward. In Hammer’s first career start at USU, he went 0-for-5 from the field with three rebounds.

Morrill was not worried about the poor performance.

“Nick was nervous,” he said. “He’ll be fine. He plays really hard.”

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu