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If the other team can't score, the Aggies can't lose By
Reuben Wadsworth
The Utah State defense sustained the Aggies to its second straight Big West Conference championship Saturday night and now Aggie players hope that defense will help the team ³make some noise² in the NCAA tournament, something they didnıt do last year as they lost to defending national champion University of Connecticut in the first round. The 12th-seeded Aggies play Ohio State University, the fifth seed, in the NCAA East region Thursday at about 10:25 a.m. (MST) in Greensboro, N.C. Even University of the Pacific head coach Bob Thomason, whose Tigers lost to the Aggies, 50-38, in the BWC Championship Game, praised the USU defense. ³Iım going to learn how to play defense like them,² he said. Said USU head coach Stew Morrill: ³Iım not sure Iıve had a group of young men buy into defense like these guys have. That was the whole difference for us in the tournament, to turn up our defense a notch.² In the BWC tournament, the Aggies limited all three opponents to fewer than 50 points, marking the first time since the 1949-50 season USU has held opponents to that low of scoring for three straight games. Morrill said he has harped all year on keeping opponents under 40 percent shooting. USU did that in the tournament, holding Cal-State Fullerton to 30.5 percent Thursday, BSU to 36.2 and Pacific to 34. In its semifinal game against Boise State University, the Aggies were down 48-47, with 11:58 to go but then held the Broncoıs scoreless the rest of the way, winning by a score of 67-48. The championship game with Pacific was no different. The Aggies held the Tigers scoreless from the 7:30 mark in the first half until Pacificıs Jono Metzger-Jones tipped one in at the buzzer going into the intermission. USU point guard Bernard Rock said before the tournament that good defense helps shots on the other end start falling. That was true for Aggie forward Curtis Bobb Friday against BSU. Bobb drew the assignment of guarding the Broncosı leading scorer, Abe Jackson. According to Bobb, his goal that night was just to shut down Jackson and not worry about scoring. Bobb held Jackson to uncharacteristic 4-for-15 shooting that night while scoring a game-high 17 points Dion Denied? Rock was named tournament MVP and Shawn Daniels and Curtis Bobb to the all-tournament team. Despite excellent play in the first-round game and championship game, USU reserve forward Dion Bailey was left off the mediaıs recognition list. An injustice? Rock thinks so. Rock said he thought Bailey deserved to be on the all-tournament team. Bailey was taking it all in stride, however. ³We know that our individual success comes by way of the team, so it doesnıt really matter to me,² he said. Bailey scored a then-career-high 13 points in the first tournament game against CSF and then netted 14 points in the championship game to lead all Aggie scorers. Baileyıs defense was also valuable to the Aggies he had four steals in the championship game.
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