W. Basketball: Aggies struggle offensively, lose to Bengals

By Joe Wangemann

There’s an old saying that the best offense is a good defense, but the old saying didn’t hold true for the Aggies Saturday night.

The Utah State women’s basketball team had more turnovers than field goals, losing to Idaho State 58-43 Saturday evening at the Spectrum.

“We just didn’t hit our shots when we had to,” said senior guard Ana Pares, who led the Aggies with 13 points and eight rebounds. “We were open for shots that we weren’t ready for, and we had a lot of opportunities being open and not realizing that we had our shot, maybe forcing it a little bit too much.”

The Aggies were 17-59 from the field and just 4-25 from the 3-point line.

“Just from the perimeter, we shot horribly,” said head coach Raegan Pebley. “Twenty-five threes is just way too many, especially when you only make four of them.”

Idaho State shot 36.4 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from behind the arc, compared to 28.8 percent from the field and just 16 percent from 3-point range for the Aggies.

“Teams are going to have off-shooting nights, and that’s definitely what we experienced – a majorly poor shooting night,” Pebley said.

Despite the offensive struggles, the Aggies played solid defense, recording three blocks and nine steals.

“We held them, up until having to foul right there, below 50 points, and that’s what your defense needs to do,” Pebley said. “That’s an exceptional defensive night.”

USU was plagued by turnovers, recording 20 which translated to 21 points for Idaho State, while the Aggies only scored 11 points off of ISU’s 11 turnovers.

“We turned the ball over too many times, but our kids showed some patience to try and find good open looks,” Pebley said.

Pebley said she had wanted to see the bench play better this game, and afterwards she felt like they did. USU’s bench outscored the Bengals’ reserves 7-5.

Idaho State was led by senior Michelle Grohs, who had 21 points and 10 rebounds in the game. Grohs shot 8-16 from the field and 4-8 from the three-point line.

The Bengals went on an early 8-0 run to take a lead they carried for most of the game. USU cut the lead to two, but Idaho State scored the last four points of the half to take a 23-16 halftime lead.

The Aggies stormed back in the second half, as a layup from freshman Chelsea Burns gave the Aggies a 32-29 lead. Idaho State responded by going on a 13-0 run to take the lead for good. The Bengals held a comfortable lead for the rest of the game, shooting 10-13 from the free-throw line in the second half and 12-15 overall.

Utah State is now 1-2 this season, while the Bengals improve to 2-2. The Aggies still hold the series lead against Idaho State, 13-11. Saturday’s game was the lowest scoring game for USU since a 69-42 loss to Hawai’i on Feb. 7, 2008.

The Aggies will quickly return to action against Montana State-Northern tonight at 7 p.m. in the Spectrum. Pebley said she wants to see the team take care of the ball and shoot a better percentage in Monday’s game.

“I want to see our defense continue to do what it’s doing,” she said. “It’s ahead of our offense right now, and that’s normal at this time of year, but we need to get it crisper.”

–joseph.w@aggiemail.usu.edu