Women’s basketball remains hopeful despite another tough loss

Some things change, some things stay the same. On Wednesday night, the result of the Aggies women’s basketball game felt all too familiar: an 82-77 loss to Boise State. It marked their fourteenth loss in 15 games this season, leaving them stuck at the bottom of the Mountain West standings. 

Yet, a sense of change is beginning to emerge within the Aggie locker room. While many teams might have given up after enduring weeks of relentless disappointment, head coach Wesley Brooks offered words of encouragement during the postgame press conference.

“Very proud of our effort,” Coach Brooks said. “A lot of good things. We’re getting better.”

Although the Aggies struggled with consistency over the full 40 minutes, they showed flashes of success on both sides of the ball. Guard Cheyenne Stubbs, who is consistently the team’s offensive leader, erupted for 12 of her 20 points in the fourth quarter, propelling the Aggies to outscore the Broncos 28-19 in the final period. 

In fact, Utah State might have secured the win had it not been for two significant scoring runs they allowed to Boise State. In the first quarter, after Utah State scored the opening basket, Boise State responded with a 12-0 run, establishing a 10-point lead. Later, in the third quarter, the Broncos ended the period with a 9-0 run, extending their lead to 60-45.

Whenever the Aggies found themselves trailing and felt the urgency to rally, they responded with intense ball pressure and an aggressive offensive mindset. However, just as they closed the gap, a missed defensive rotation would result in an open three-pointer for the Broncos, or their offense would stagnate, leading to difficult, low-percentage shots.

“If [Boise State] doesn’t have those runs, we win the game tonight,” Coach Brooks said. “We have to be grittier defensively. We had a couple balls they just took out of our hands, and we had a couple of fifty-fifty balls that we didn’t pick up off the floor.”

At this point, the stats—shooting percentages, assists, turnovers, and defensive metrics—speak for themselves. Early in the season, the Aggies struggled to make shots, turned the ball over frequently, and were dominated on the boards. All of those numbers have steadily improved as the season has progressed, simply because the team’s talent all but ensured they would eventually break out of their early slump.

Instead of focusing on the statistics as the cause of his team’s struggles, Coach Brooks is emphasizing a quality he hopes to instill in his players—hustle, a trait that can’t be measured by numbers.

“That comes with maturity and growth, and we’ll do a better job,” Coach Brooks said, referring to his team’s aggressiveness and hustle. “I’ll do a better job of leading that. I’ll do a better job of teaching that.”

Many of the players on the team have demonstrated their ability to play with that sense of urgency, but the consistency hasn’t been there. 

Prior to the aforementioned 4th quarter explosion from Stubbs, she was having a quiet offensive showing, often standing motionless in the corner, which reflected in the team’s stagnant possessions on offense. 

Center Gracie Johnson was protecting the rim perfectly on defense, recording three blocks in just 15 minutes of play, but her lack of discipline led her to foul out in short notice.

No one on the court embodied the hustle and tenacity Coach Brooks was searching for more than guard Mia Tarver. Tarver’s 14 points are the second-highest in any game this season, but it was her three steals and eight free throw attempts that helped invigorate the team’s comeback.

Tarver’s minutes off the bench instantaneously helped the team play faster thanks to her suffocating ball pressure on defense and kamikaze-style drives to the basket, colliding with defenders at full speed to earn trips to the free-throw line. 

“My energy spreads throughout my whole team,” Tarver said. “If I don’t have energy, the whole team’s not gonna have energy.”

It’s rare for a loss at the college level to inspire so much hope for the future, but for a team that has faced significant struggles and disappointment, their ability to stay competitive and resilient signals a step in the right direction.

“I think people think we’re gonna go away, and we don’t go away,” Coach Brooks said. “We’re never going away. We are developing a relentlessness.”

The Aggies will have a chance to put that relentlessness to the test on their upcoming road trip when they play Nevada on Jan. 11 and Fresno State on Jan. 15.