Hello Sweep Dance my old friend... It seems the Aggies win again, 61-60

Pane won this final battle between these two

At the start of this season, there were three games which I thought Utah State would absolutely not win. Based on both my knowledge of USU's team as well as the opposing teams, I thought at Wichita State, at Mississippi State and at Hawaii were the three games that would just be too tough. Each of the teams had the edge in experience, talent and athleticism that would have just been too much for this young USU team.

What happened was a breakout performance against Wichita State, a near earth-shattering upset at Miss. State and a win on the islands. All three went above and beyond what I thought the team had in them.

Saturday's game started off close before the Aggies built a small lead that lasted them for the bulk of the first half before Hawaii came back to grab a two-point lead at the half.

In the second half, Hawaii was like a bigger, faster older brother who dangled a victory in front of lil' bro Utah State's face saying, "Bet you can't catch me," and kept gaining ground, then letting up just to tease the Aggies a bit before gaining separation again. This went on for more than 18 minutes, with Utah State never getting within as close as two points to the Warriors.

Finally, with 1:42 remaining, Brockeith Pane hit a jumper to bring USU within one point of Hawaii. After Zane Johnson made one and missed on of his free throws after being fouled by Preston Medlin and the Aggies down two, Medlin drove hard along the baseline, pulled up with two defenders in his face and nailed a shot to tie the game at 59.

With :37 seconds left, Joston Thomas only hit on one-of-two free throws to give Hawaii a one-point lead. Then, it seemed like the officials felt their job was done having reffed 39 minutes and 23 seconds of basketball.

Hawaii's defense (complete with the length and athleticism that I figured would make life so difficult for USU) was putting some major pressure on the Aggies and completely threw USU's offense out of whack. With the play broken, the ball landed in the hands of an unlikely hero, who conveniently had plenty of room in the lane to work with because of the standard defense of  "double-team Medlin and the rest will sort itself out" strategy employed by so many teams.

After driving in, throwing down a spin-move and railroading a Hawaii defender, Morgan Grim dropped in a basket to put the Aggies ahead, 61-60.

Granted, I was stuck watching the game on a crappy web feed, with crappy internet connection that was skipping all over the place, but it looked to me like the refs completely swallowed their whistles in what could only be described as a "let the boys play" moment.

Hawaii had the ball with seven seconds left to win it when Jeremiah Ostrowski drove hard to the right side with Pane right there with him. To me, it looked either Pane got away with a little bit of contact, or Ostrowski just straight up tripped over his own shoe. They showed the replay one time, but like I said, the internet stream was "meh" at best. 

Regardless, the Aggies made plays down the stretch in a close game, on the road. They completely scrapped this one out, continually clawing their way back, and never giving up despite never getting over the hump until there were seven seconds left. It was awfully reminiscent of a certain WAC Tournament game back in 2009 when USU had to fight their way back in a second half only to finally reclaim the lead with just seconds remaining from an unlikely hero.

With the win Saturday, The Sweep Dance made its first appearance of the year. Should this team pull a miracle and win the WAC Tournament, I think it should deserve the first public performance of the dance, on the scorers table, at The Orleans Arena.

THE WAC TOURNAMENT

With and 8-6 record, Utah State enters the WAC Tournament as the No. 4 seed and will face Louisiana Tech in the first round. Barring a miracle by San Jose State, the winner of that 4/5 match-up will face Nevada in the second round.

From there, it would get interesting. Everyone knows that going 3-for-3 against a team in any year is difficult, and both of the games between the Aggies and Wolf Pack this year were thrillers. With USU actually looking respectable again as of late, a third game between Utah State and Nevada would be, at the very least, pretty fun.

As far as The Spectrum on Wheels goes, this year won't be rocking as hard as last year, both because morale is low among the fans, and because the people in charge at USU are dicks. Why in the hell you would not make Spring Break the same week as the WAC Tournament is beyond me. Traveling to the conference tournament is like a time-honored tradition for USU Spring Breakers. And while missing class for Aggie basketball is also a great USU tradition, some teachers like to be the assholes who schedule tests right before Spring Break, which can really screw people over.

Still, the tournament should be fun this year. Nevada is obviously the heavy favorite, but their depth is going to be crucial to their success. New Mexico State has some depth to work with, which will make them tough for anyone over a three-day tournament. Idaho is just a solid team who can beat anyone on any night. Hawaii still is tall, athletic, talented and should be feared. And Utah State, well... It's a Stew Morrill team in the tournament. And they appear to be getting hot at just the right time.

NOTES

•  Morgan Grim now has more game-winning baskets than Jaycee Carroll. Wrap your head around that.
• Vander Joaquim might have cost himself the all-WAC first team tonight.
• Aggies won the rebounding battle by 10 tonight against a team that outrebounded them by 20 in The Spectrum. #improvement
• Calling Jordan Stone and Kyisean Reed's free throw shooting "shit" is a horrible understatement. The combined to shoot 1-for-11. I'm of the belief that if a team gets as many as 10 free throw attempts in a game and shoots below 50 percent, that is bad. And it gets more and more unforgivable the more attempts the team has. Shooting 46 percent on 26 attempts cannot aptly be described by any four-letter word I can think of.
• Mitch Bruneel gets the start over Danny Berger, which was a surprise. Neither of them were good tonight though. Berger's five rebounds is the only thing to smile at there.
• For a bit, it looked a lot like Brockeith Pane was doing that thing where he forgets he has teammates and tries to win it all himself. Tonight, it kind of worked! He was money down the stretch, and he's a guy who most teams won't have an answer for when he's on. Only one assist is "meh", but he hadn't scored 20 points in a game since Jan. 19.
• Then there was Preston Medlin... He finishes the regular season averaging 16.6 points per game, including 18.5 in conference play. His shooting numbers are freaking ridiculous to say the least, and for having the final two weeks to the season that he's had, should have locked his place in on the all-WAC first team. Tonight, he was perfect from the free throw line with the most attempts on the team, scored 19 points, had four assists, two rebounds, a steal and only one turnover. This guy, is just... freaking... UNREAL!!!

Player of the Game: Preston Medlin