By Doug Layne

The Utah State basketball season is just one week away from officially starting its season. The Aggies wrapped up their preseason schedule as they defeated the Southern California All-Star basketball team. The USU hoops team continued to work out its kinks as they prepared for their first game of the season next week against Santa Clara.

The game was anything but easy during the first half for the defended Big West Champions who are highly favored to win their conference this season. The Aggies found themselves down by three points when Chico Anderson drained a three pointer from beyond the arc with just over 11 minutes remaining. That was the biggest lead of the night for the all-star team from California. The Aggies continued to struggle in the first half of play as the Cal stars offense had three more offensive boards than the Aggies offensive. In the first half of play USU shot 41 percent from the field and allowed the stars to shoot only 30 percent from the field.

The second half was a different story as the Aggies proved to be too much for the stars to keep up with. Bernard Rock helped USU as he passed the ball to Shawn Daniels who was on the receiving end of an alley-opp as USU went on a 11 to zero run.

"They simply just ran out of gas" Utah State head coach Stew Morrill said.

Then a couple minutes later Brennan Ray who finished the game with a total of six points hammer dunked the ball helping his team to a 10 to zero run.

Senior forward Curtis Bobb came up big for the Aggies as he scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half including two 3-pointers from down town.

"I am a tough player, I came back ready to play" Bobb said.

"He's playing real good right now and he can't relax out there" Morrill said about Bobb. "He needs to be active".

The Aggies outscored the stars in the second half 48 to 23.

"We were more fired up and we were more aggressive" senior guard Bernard Rock said.

In the second half the Aggies, who only out rebounded the Cal Stars 25 to 23 in the first half, out rebounded them 30 to 10. The USU hoops also only allowed 23 percent shooting in the second half.

"We played better defense, we stayed with our man to man and stayed with it no matter what" Morrill said.

The Aggies are now off to Fairbanks, Alaska to play in the 2000 Top of the World Classic basketball tournament on Nov. 17-19. Going into the tournament, Utah State holds the current NCAA basketball's longest winning streak with 16 games. USU also has a 12-game winning streak against teams that are from California.

JL
JL

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