Stew's top 20: No. 7 - Desmond Penigar

As far as an overall combination of size, skill and athleticism, Desmond Penigar might be second-to-none under Stew Morrill. From both inside and out, he was an offensive force to be reckoned with, and one that few teams were ever capable of slowing down.

Penigar wasted little time making a huge impression at Utah State, going off for a career-high 34 points in just his fourth game, leading the Aggies to a 90-81 win over BYU. He also had nine rebounds in that contest, which were a nice compliment to Tony Brown's 20 points and 10 assists in that game.

In that 2001-02 season, Penigar and Brown combined to make up the third best scoring duo in Stew's tenure at USU, behind only Jaycee Carroll and Gary Wilkinson of 2008, and 2006's outputs by Carroll and Nate Harris. Penigar finished the year averaging 17.2 points per game, which is the best first season for a junior college transfer under Morrill by quite a wide margin. On top of that, he was a stellar rebounder, pulling down 6.9 boards per game in that first season.

Despite the graduation of Brown after Penigar's junior season, he still got a slew of reinforcements for his senior season in 2002-03 in the form of Mark Brown, Cardell Butler, Spencer Nelson and Nate Harris. With so many guys capable of scoring, Penigar's per game averages all took a slight dip in his senior season. Despite a finishing third in the Big West regular season standings that season, Penigar laid down the hammer in the Big West Tournament, leading USU to a championship, while being named tournament MVP in the process. Penigar was also named a mid-major all-American by CollegeInsider.com in 2003.

He capped off his career with an impressive 25 points and nine rebounds in a near shocker again Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. Kansas went on all the way to the championship game that season after barely surviving against Penigar's Aggies. Despite the drop off in his senior season, Penigar still finished his USU career averaging 16.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, all while hitting on 47.7 percent of his shots from the field.

As dominant as he was offensively at times though, Penigar did leave a bit to desired both defensively and when it came to sharing the basketball. For his career he only racked up a total of 35 assists compared to 118 turnovers. Also, relative to most Stew Morrill big men, Penigar's field goal percentage was quite low. Part of that was due to his mid-range game that he brought to the table, but not all of it.

It's also worth noting, even though it held no bearing in his placement in the top 20, Penigar is the only USU player under Morrill to have played in the NBA. And while his 10 games were short lived, he has still had a solid playing career overseas in his post-USU career.

When it came to putting points on the board, Penigar was the best of any JUCO transfer to play for Stew. He is second to only Jaycee Carroll in career points per game of any player to play for Morrill. He also was key in what almost was a win for the ages, the likely would still be talked about around the country today if the Aggies had been able to pull it out.