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Aggies go from Jekyll to Hyde in loss to BYU, 82-73
By Wade Denniston
What a difference a game makes. On Tuesday, when Utah State University hosted Fresno State University at the Spectrum, the Aggies limited the Bulldogs to just 43.5 percent shooting from the floor (27-of-62), while shooting 50 percent themselves (33-of-66). In that game, USU had a season-low five turnovers, while forcing Fresno State into 11, which is a major reason the Aggies ran away with it, 83-66. But on Saturday, vs. in-state rival Brigham Young University in front of the 15th largest crowd in Spectrum history (10,270), Utah State shot just 39.4 percent from the floor (28-for-71). Ten turnovers didn't help the Aggies' cause, either. "The biggest thing in the ballgame tonight was that for whatever reason, they came out as the aggressors," said Utah State head coach Stew Morrill, after the 82-73 defeat. "At the start of the ballgame, they were alive and we seemed a step slow. They seemed very confident and we seemed unconfident." For its efforts in the opening half, BYU (11-2) was able to shoot a blistering 57.1 percent from the field on 16-of-28 shooting, 5-of-10 from beyond the arc. Utah State (9-5) on the other hand, shot a dismal 33.3 percent on 10-of-30 shots, just 1-of-8 from the three-point line. "I thought our offensive execution in the first half was as good as it has been all year," said Cougar head coach Steve Cleveland. Another problem the Aggies had was trying to stop junior guard Terrell Lyday, who blew up for 35 points, 24 coming in the second half alone. "We didn't have an answer for Lyday," Morrill said. "We tried a triangle and two and tried putting different people on him. We tried zone, we tried everything. "He just lit us up." The Cougars were the first to light the scoreboard in the game when sophomore guard Michael Vranes jammed in the first two points of the contest. Brigham Young continued to dominate as it opened up a 15-8 lead on a Lyday 17-foot jump shot with 14:51 to go in the half. A quick timeout from Utah State stopped the BYU momentum and enabled it to get back in the game with five straight points. However, two points would be as close as the Aggies would come to the Cougars the rest of the game. Brigham Young used an 11-2 run midway through the first half to give it a comfortable cushion at 26-15, eventually taking the lead out to as many as 14 points, 34-20, on a Lyday 16-footer with 3:52 remaining before half. The Aggies cut the lead back to single digits, 37-28, when junior forward Andre Mahorn converted on a 5-footer with 1:15 to go, but the Cougars answered back with a three-pointer from Lyday to end the half with a 12-point lead, 40-28. "We had a couple of short shots that didn't go in early and they were the aggressor at the beginning of the game," said USU sophomore guard Tony Brown, who had a career-high eight assists in the game. "They were really into us defensively and took us out of our game. We just weren't very crisp offensively." The Aggies came out much stronger in the second half as they used a 15-7 run to cut the lead to four, 47-43, with 15:16 to go. However, Lyday had an answer for the Cougars when he nailed a three-pointer to push the lead back to seven. Utah State hung tough, though, eventually cutting the lead back down to four, 65-61, on a sophomore guard Bernard Rock layup with 6:09 to go in the game. The Aggies had their chances to come even closer than that, but would miss seemingly easy shots, or turn it over, which helped the Cougars put the game out of reach at the end. "At the start of the second half, we came out and put up a little resistence, but they just played extremely well and they looked like a 10-2, 11-2 team today," Morrill said. USU's loss was the second straight to Brigham Young, and only the third in 48 of the last home contests. Needless to say, it was a disappointment. "We didn't do anything that we practiced," Brown said. "We didn't play pressure defense. We just didn't have any energy and that was the biggest reason that we lost." Brown led USU with a team-high 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting, 4-for-11 from beyond the three-point line. Three other Aggies reached double figures as junior forward Shawn Daniels scored 10 (5-for-9), senior forward Troy Rolle added 11 (only 3-for-10) and junior center Dimitri Jorssen tied a career-high with 14 (7-of-12). As USU prepares to open Big West Conference play this week, it knows it will have to sure things up if it hopes to compete. "We are going to have to get a lot better defensively if we are going to have a chance to compete in the Big West," Morrill said. "It is disappointing because we came off a big one against Fresno State and then we just didn't come out aggressive (tonight).
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Archived Months:
September
1998 |
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