Play improving, roar restoring. Aggies, 63 - community college that is D-1 for no good reason, 54

Anybody wanna argue against this guy being
USU's best player so far this season?

There just might be something to these team effort things that the Aggies have put together four times now this season. Stew ball has been showing itself more and more lately, which is the sign of a good Aggie team in the making. There's still plenty of times when the youth shows through and guys look lost out on the floor, but if that improves each game, we're going to have ourselves a nice little basketball team here before not too long.

Tonight's game came out of the gate looking like a blowout, but progressed into a battle of streaks throughout the rest of the game, but never enough for UV to grab a lead. Biggest thing with tonight was that the Aggies never allowed UV's go-to guys to make a major impact. Isiah Williams was clearly a guy who could be dangerous if he gets hot and Ben Aird is strong and talented down low. Both of them were pretty handily handled tonight, and when facing a team like UV, chances are they don't have those lightning-in-a-bottle kinds of guys who can step up and have a huge game when their stars fail to produce. That was the case tonight. 

Aird still made a pretty solid impact defensively, holding Morgan Grim to just seven points on 2-of-7 shots, but Grim also didn't quite look like he was back to 100 percent from the ankle/curseofthe2012seniorclass/flu. Grim still got his, and really had a solid game as quiet as his points and rebounds seemed to come. It also would have been nice if he didn't have to put in 34 minutes of work battling an injury, the flu and some wretched curse. But, he's a team-player, and got the job done quite nicely.

The biggest stories of the game though was the aforementioned USU defense that kept UV from really ever getting into any real offensive rhythm, and the wings for the Aggies, who were aweeeeesome!

Mitch Bruneel and Adam Thoseby (who is now nicknamed Tea-Time), were solid. They played largely mistake-free and made the majority of their shots.

Preston Medlin and Danny Berger were basically the Batman and Robin of tonight's game. Medlin kept on being USU's best player this season with a 13 point, five rebound and six assist performance. His impact, and especially outside shooting ability, has seemingly become the primary focus of opposing defenses. The great thing about Pre-Med has been that he is good at recognizing when teams are selling out on him defensively and finding an open man (hence, those six assists). He's forced a few shots throughout the year, but they seem to be coming less and less.

Enter Robin:

The Aggies got their Berger animal style tonight, particularly down the stretch. While the Wolverines were selling out their defense trying to keep Pre-Med from dealing them any knockout blows, Danny Berger found himself left alone a few times in those closing minutes and he cashed HUGE! Really, UV didn't make things too difficult on him, but he at least had the sense to recognize what was given to him and reacted before his window closed.

Game over, thanks for playing.

Notes

• Kyisean Reed was USU's best big man tonight. Much like Berger did down the stretch, Reed made UV pay for committing too much to another player on the court. Also that alley-oop was just marvellous!!
• Jordan Stone = Good rebounding and defensive presence. Everything else, especially ball control, needs work. You can see the potential, and he is already capable of impacting games, but that's on a limited basis. If/when he can handle it well enough to back guys down, his scoring should skyrocket. The team would benefit a whole lot if those skills had some nice, instantaneous development.
• It was right around this point in the season that Pooh Williams landed in the doghouse during his freshman year. Things eventually worked out for him, as you may remember. Keep your head up Steven Thornton! Work through it.
• In the last two games, Brockeith Pane has shot 6-for-26, 1-of-9 from 3-point land and dished on three total assists. There's been a troubling trend of him forgetting he has teammates once the shot clock reaches :10, usually resulting in a forced shot, rarely resulting in points. Curse of the 2012 senior class??
• On the flip side, Pane's defense is basically lockdown. He has four blocks in the last two games and essentially made Holton Hunsaker a complete non-factor tonight.

Preston Medlin

Anybody thinking that he has been anything but the Aggies' best player this season had best check yourself.  The goose-egg at TAMCC was bad, but he shot 0-for-2 in that game and was only slightly worse than the team average that night. And he's averaging 16.75 points per game since then.

His defense has been solid, his 3-point shooting is at an elite level and he's a very good rebounder for a guard (4.1 per game). As out of sorts as the offense has been so far, he's been holding things together with his patience in letting things develop, which he can pull off because he's got a great handle on the ball. The only statistical knock that can be made on Pre-Med is his free-throw shooting, but I'm going to get bold here and predict he finishes the season above at least 80 percent there.

In each of the last four games he's almost been the unquestionable player of the game, something I'm sure he'll be plenty deserving of plenty often as this season goes on. For tonight, I felt that Danny Berger's play down the stretch was enough to earn POG honors, but seeing as how Medlin was both awesome all game and crucial in taking pressure off of Berger, let's just make tonight's a team effort.

Player(s) of the Game: Danny Berger and Preston Medlin