Still alive!! Aggies dominate way to Elite Eight

Sure, it's only the Elite Eight of the CIT, but dammit I'll take it. In all these years in-between the NCAA Tournament letdowns, it has seemed like USU has not taken the NIT seriously. It's not the Big Dance, and with that being the dream destination of every team and every player, still playing after falling short of that goal doesn't seem to inspire and fire in a team.

So far though, it seems like this USU team is busting that trend. Maybe they didn't completely bring their A-game against Bakersfield, but they won. If that winning is contagious, it showed Saturday, along with that A-game against Idaho.

This game was never really in question. From the start, Idaho could not get a shot to fall to save its life and USU was clicking on every level. After getting down huge early on, the Vandals just looked like a team with the life sucked out of them. The shots never fell with much frequency and the Aggies never really slowed down.

It was just kind of a beatdown. It was also possibly the best USU has looked as a team both offensively and defensively in quite some time.

Who we play from here? That is the great mystery when it comes to this tournament.




NOTES

• Brockeith Pane with 11 assists!!! Hell (four-letter word)ing YES!!!!
• On top of the assists and despite another poor shooting game, Pane was a total impact player on both ends of the floor. He dominated the game at times and and just made his team better in a ton of ways. Did I mention 11 assists? And only one turnover? Freaking get some!
• Kyisean Reed dominated at times too, which if that can hold as a trend for three more games, we just might have a championship on our hands.
• Ben Clifford didn't shoot great tonight (3-of-8), but watching him play, you can see he's learning some new moves down in the post and trying to turn them into points. He's still got plenty of developing left to do there, but if the progress is this obvious so far, it's hard to not be excited about the future. Were it not for a pair of fumbled passes he would have had four more points tonight.
• Jordan Stone's presence in the middle is, at this point, an undeniable asset to this team. He's clearly progressed and gotten comfortable on both ends of the floor, and while he's not an offensive threat yet, he is making things happen.
• Preston Medlin is all that is man!! 17 points, five rebounds, four assists. Money in the bank. He creates like crazy, he scores like crazy, he defends like crazy; he's just off the freaking hook.
• As good as Medlin was, Pane and Reed were also great, Grim, Stone and Berger all had very solid games. Clifford, Bruneel and Farris all made solid contributions too while the whole team shot and defended well. Everyone chipped in, each in their own way, to make for a blowout win.

Player of the Game: The Utah State Aggies