WAC Tourney gets a new champion — USU
No doubt
After weeks of speculation on if USU’s resume was enough to make the NCAA tournament field of 65, the Aggies got rid of all the guesswork. USU used a 13-0 run to start the game and ran away from the Nevada Wolf Pack en route to a 72-62 victory and the Aggies’ first WAC tournament championship.
“For this team to win the regular season and the conference tournament, especially coming in on (Nevada’s) home court, is just unbelievable,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “We did a really good job of controlling the tempo and playing at a speed we wanted to play at.”
Conference Player of the Year Gary Wilkinson led the Aggies with 21 points and added another award to his accomplishments – WAC Tournament MVP.
“You can talk all you want, but when it comes down to it you have to step up and make it happen on the court,” Wilkinson said. “There’s no better feeling in the world then to not have to say a word, but just go out and play the game and let that speak for us.”
Tai Wesley and Jared Quayle also had big games for the Ags as each recorded a double-double. Quayle had 15 points and 10 rebounds while Wesley had 14 points and 11 boards. Both were named to the all-tournament team.
For the third time in as many games, the Aggies started well, and thanks to some nice passing and tough defense, scored the first 13 points of the game.
The Wolf Pack eventually did score on a tip-in by Ahyaro Phillips nearly seven minutes into the game, but USU continued to extend its lead.
Halfway through the opening period the Aggies had opened up a 17-point lead, 21-4, as the home crowd sat in stunned silence.
Nevada didn’t help themselves as they only connected on two of their first 21 attempts from the field. Inevitably though, the tournament hosts would make a run.
After a timeout, the Wolf Pack went on an 11-0 run of their own during a five minute Aggie cold spell. The run cut the USU lead to five and got the hometown crowd back in the game.
Sophomore Tyler Newbold finally broke the drought for the Aggies with a long jumper, and moments later a 3-pointer by Stavon Williams had the lead back to seven with less than a minute remaining in the opening stanza.
Nevada would tack on two free throws right before the intermission, but halfway through the championship game the Aggies held the lead, 28-23.
Early in the second half Nevada pulled to within four on slam-dunk by Armon Johnson that brought the crowd to its feet. The Aggies had their eyes on a prize though, and that’s as close as they would let the Wolf Pack get.
USU responded with a 13-4 run to push the lead back to double digits that forced Nevada coach Mark Fox to call a timeout.
After the game Fox had a lot of excuses for his team’s performance – Utah State’s “physical maturity” compared to Nevada’s and a pregame back injury to leading scorer Luke Babbit.
“We had a lot of little, easy looks at the basket that we did not finish. At one point it was 10-0 and it should have been 10-10. We just didn’t finish,” Fox said. “Fatigue, certainly, was probably a part of that. Being young physically was probably more of a factor. We just couldn’t physically answer the bell very well with a third game in three days and a second one in under 24 hours.”
Morrill had a different point of view – defense.
“Nevada’s got a really good basketball team and they’ve been on a roll and we certainly want to congratulate them on the great season they’ve had,” Morrill said. “You’d like to think we had something to do with them missing those shots, our defense … you can speculate fatigue or whatever, but I’ve always believed that when things don’t go right for you the opponent had something to do with it.”
The Aggies held the Wolf Pack to a dismal 22-of 72 from the field (30.5 percent) for the game, and Wesley frustrated Babbit all night. The highly-touted freshman finished with eight points, and didn’t score his first points until the 16:24 mark of the second half.
Sophomore Pooh Williams also had a great performance for the Ags as he shut down Nevada’s other threat, Johnson, until the final minutes of the game when the outcome was already decided.
“He’s had two really good second halfs, back to back nights offensively,” said Morrill of Williams. “We’ve always felt he needs to attack the basket and he’s been doing that and it compliments that he can make some 3’s. Pooh’s really finishing the year strong and that’s encouraging, and I think his game is growing and his confidence is growing and I think that’s a big part of us winning.”
Johnson did finish with 20 points, but 17 of those came in the second half and the majority of those on 3’s in the final minutes.
Determined to not let another lead get whittled away, the Aggies continued to pull ahead as Williams and Newbold hit from outside, Wilkinson split double and triple teams, and Quayle made a serious of acrobatic plays.
A Wesley tip-in with 7:35 remaining put the Ags up 54-35, their biggest lead of the game.
Trailing by 16 with about 1:45 to play, a desperation push by Nevada cut the deficit to 10, but the ending was never in doubt as USU was able to run out the clock and begin the celebration in earnest.
“Our offense is always going to be there, coach has said that all year, and it has,” Wilkinson said. “We get up and then we slack off defensively, we think that we have a team where we want them and they’re just going to roll over and let us dominate. Tonight every time we came out in the huddle, every person’s mindset was on defense, it wasn’t on anything else but defense and rebounding … I think that was the difference tonight.”
The 30-win total is the most ever by an Aggie team, and the most ever for Morrill.
“Thirty win seasons come around probably once in a coaching lifetime – it’s kind of unreal right now to me,” Morrill said. “We always put in the corner of our board how many wins we’ve got, and they’d drawn a big box and left it blank and allowed me to write the 30, so that was awfully nice of them.”
First Round – USU vs. Fresno State
After two close regular-season games against last-place Fresno State, the Aggies moved quickly to dispel any notions that an upset might happen. They started fast and ended well in an easy 85-68 victory.
USU shot 64 percent from the floor in the first half and Stavon Williams came off the bench to score a career-high 22 points and lead the Aggies. He connected on 8-of-11 shots, including going 6-of-8 from 3-point land.
Wilkinson chipped in 18 points for the Ags as he surpassed the 1,000-point mark for his USU career.
Second Round – USU vs. New Mexico State
The Ags had their biggest comeback in more than two years and needed all 40 minutes to beat a tough New Mexico State team, 71-70.
After leading by as many as 10 in the first half the Ags trailed by 13 at the break as they were outscored 40-17 over the final 14 minutes of the opening period. The Aggies chipped away at the Newmags lead, but didn’t regain the lead until Wesley found Newbold for an open jumper with 3.1 to play.
The ball rattled around and found its mark, and the Aggies advanced to the WAC championship game for their third time in four years.
Wilkinson again led the Ags in scoring this game as he tallied 19 points, and had multiple key buckets down the stretch.
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