Stew's top 20: No. 9 - Bernard Rock

Back in the Big West days, if Utah State was going to land in the NCAA Tournament, they had to do it the old fashioned way by winning the conference tournament championship. While both Jared Quayle and David Pak can claim back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances during their USU careers as starting point guards, both of them had the benefit of an at-large bid for one of those trips.

If you want to find a point guard who helped lead USU to conference tournament titles in back-to-back seasons, there is only one. And if you're looking for a point guard who managed to lead Utah State past the first round of the big dance, there is only one.

Bernard Rock is that one!

While his individual statistics aren't quite on the level of the likes of Quayle or even Brockeith Pane, Rock helped lead his team as well as anyone to the most important stat of all... wins! With a two-year conference record of 29-3, Rock was at the the helm for an absolutely dominant stretch of Aggie basketball for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons. Capping all of it off was Rock's team-high 18 points in USU's thrilling overtime victory over Ohio State in the 2001 NCAA Tournament, still the most important single victory of the past 14 years.

Over the course of his two seasons in Aggie blue, Rock's numbers stayed impressively consistent in both seasons. He finished his USU career averaging 10.3 points, 3 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.4 steals per game. He also hit on 47.1 percent of his shots from the field and was a 35.2 percent 3-point shooter. Following the undefeated conference season in 2000, Rock was named an honorable mention all-Big West selection, and earned first-team honors as a senior in 2001.

With the team's success during Rock's tenure at Utah State, along with impressive individual statistics make Rock a pretty easy choice to dub as the best point guard to have played under Stew Morrill at USU.