Taking care of business; Aggies win 69-62

That 67-60 prediction of mine wasn't too bad if I may say so.

Recap
Whatever comes to mind when you think of BYU, you can't ever say it doesn't provide for some great basketball when the Aggies and Cougars meet up to do battle.

And a battle it was.

For just more than 33 minutes of basketball, neither team led by more than five points, and for the most part, that margin rarely was above two points. The difference in the game was basically one scoring run. With the Aggies trailing 38-42 midway through the second half, riding a three minute scoring drought, Steven Thornton decided he'd had enough of the whole "not scoring" thing that his team was doing and sliced through the Cougar defense for a much-needed score. That basket was the first of an 11-0 run by USU that cranked the volume up to levels that could only be described as "Spectrumesque."

From there, Brockeith Pane and Preston Medlin basically took over the game. After Thornton's bucket, No. 0 and No. 13 were responsible for the next 18 USU points, giving the Aggies as much as an 11-point lead in the final three minutes. And unlike a year ago, USU made its free throws when the game was on the line, not to mention a few easy buckets off of shattering the full-court press.

End result, 69-62 win for the good guys and a hard-earned 1-0 start to the season.

Next up is a TOUGH game against Weber State. They are a very good team who is very experienced and very well coached with the best player in the State of Utah by a very solid margin. For as hard-fought as tonight's win was, Tuesday should be even harder. 

Notes

For BYU, Davies, Abouo and Hartsock were all solid. Hartsock especially. Why he though it'd be a good idea to bust up his nose on Brady Jardine's head, I will never know, but he's a grown man and can make his own decisions I guess. Abouo's 16 points seemed to come very quietly it seemed, while Davies looked like he's still option No. 3 on that team. His potential to impact cames is undeniable, and he'll probably get his as the year goes on. Nobody on BYU's roster was even remotely impressive, and unless their bench progresses a long ways, that will make life really difficult on those other three this season. But back to the guys who matter...

Big ups to Morgan Grim tonight. He never looks pretty doing it, but the guy essentially owned the paint for the first six or seven minutes of the game. He was physical, smart and made some aggressive moves to the basket to create opportunities.

Brady Jardine's veteran presence is invaluable to this team. Oh, and when he throws down monster dunks, that helps a whole lot too.

Kyisean Reed's rebounding in the second half was game changing. That guy's hops are like nothing I've ever seen.

Mitch Bruneel was the first half MVP. 

Not enough can be said about Preston Medlin. He looks like he has the savvy running the offense of Tyler Newbold with a scorer's mentality of Jaycee Carroll. When he and Pane are on the floor at the same time it's like there are two point guards running the show. Both can handle it and dish it, and if you leave Medlin open he will make you pay.

Then there was Brockeith Pane... As much as Medlin was amazing tonight, Pane completely took the game over in the second half, mainly down the stretch. He was causing havoc on defense, hitting big shots, going 8-8 on FT attempts and scoring 21 points (17 in the second half). Not too bad of a start from the preseason WAC Player of the Year, eh?

Player of the Game: Brockeith Pane