Last men standing still learning to walk

No words could do justice to this dude's excellence

What’s left of this basketball team hasn’t exactly had an easy road to find their legs. Their first game involved getting thrown into the fire on the road against Denver, who is one of the WAC’s best this year. UT-Arlington is in that discussion as well, while La Tech seems firmly established as the team to beat.

The 0-3 result is obviously the last thing you want, but the progress they’ve shown is at least encouraging. They put together a decent 2^nd half at Denver, showed some encouraging intensity against UTA, and now took the best team in the WAC to the wire.

Again, 0-3 in these games is tough to swallow, but these guys sure as hell are putting up a ballsy fight to make it interesting.

Much like UTA, La Tech is a good defensive team. They’re athletic and they’ve got some length to make things especially difficult for a USU team trying to learn how to walk all over again. That defensive pressure resulted in only 15 made field goals by USU. But as bad as that was offensively for the Aggies, they still managed to hold the Bulldogs to only 19-of-57 shooting from the field. That kind of defensive pressure is going to have to be commonplace for wins to start coming for these guys.

When it came to crunch time though, the Aggies didn’t have the kind of magic they’d had against the likes of Santa Clara and Idaho.

Aggies have no magic against the Mavericks

Welp... If there was going to be a reason to hold strong to any optimism of the Aggies making something special of this injury tidal wave, it was going to have to show itself Thursday against UT-Arlington.

That optimism is mostly dead now. A win on Saturday could possibly be the Mike Williams to this season's Danny Berger, but after the consistent struggles against Denver and now UTA, not looking all that promising.

The problem at this point is that a few teams have exposed even the healthy version of this team to be very turnover prone if you play high-pressure man-to-man defense. The ball handling gets hectic, timing of the offense is all thrown off, passes get picked off, and nobody for the life of them can finish around the basket!

Credit to UTA for playing some balls-out defense all night. Any decent window to shoot was closed out on almost immediately by the quickness of the Mavericks. Either that, or whoever might have been looking for a pass had a defender draped all over him, rarely drawing a foul call.

Make no mistake, the Aggies got beat in this game. There was some absolute shitballs officiating, but a few rather poor calls went USU's way. And at the very least, they were at least somewhat consistently shitty, in which case it's got to fall somewhat on the players to adjust to that. When your former top 150 recruit of a center and junior college all-American point guard shoot a combined 3-19 from the field, that's what will cost you games. Getting crushed in the second half in rebounds like the Aggies did will also do it. And being -7 in turnovers won't help your case either.

I'd harp on the USU bench (i.e. Jordan Stone) getting outscored by UTA's B-team 25-6, but that's not really fair considering the Aggies don't really have a bench anymore.

INTENSITY
Sloppy and frustrating as much of Thursday's play was, the intensity and hustle shown by the team cannot go unmentioned. They at least wanted it, and wanted it badly. They just didn't come through when it came time to execute. At this point in the season, we're used to teams executing things very well, and for whatever reason that's not the case.

Still, that kind of hustle will win a few games. Hell, it'll even make a few games we shouldn't win a lot more interesting. A big shot or two mixed in with a defensive stop or two down the stretch in this game, and we'd all be talking about how great a win this was and the fight this team has in them.

Like I said before, bounce back from this with a win over La Tech, and maybe we'll still have a shred of hope for this season ending on some kind of memorable note.

NOTES

• Spencer Butterfield is all that is man! Despite the loss, he clearly stepped up as the guy willing to put the team on his back, or at least what's left of the team. 23 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, and two steals, all while shooting well from the field gives at least a little comfort that someone is ready to try and fill some big shoes.
• Not really having anything positive to write about Ben Clifford for the first half of the season was tough on me. Thursday, he was who I'd hoped he'd be this season. He shot the ball well to the tune of 12 points, while also pulling down nine rebounds and blocking four shots. If his high-energy play can produce points on a consistent basis, we'll be able to hang in a handful of games.
• If Jarred Shaw had the motor that Clifford had, we'd probably hang around in every game still. Ever since a dominant start to the season though, Shaw seems to have leveled off quite a bit. He could not finish around the basket for the life of him again UTA, and I can't think of any reason why he should have the second fewest rebounds on the team in a game. He's still showing brief flashes of trying to be more physical offensively, but nothing consistent yet.
• Has any true freshman ever had more asked of them than Marcel Davis? (Jaycee Carroll doesn't count. He was an RM as a freshman, not an 18-year-old). Davis has been great in a handful of games this year, but recently has very much hit the freshman wall. Part of the credit goes to the lockdown defense played on him by UTA, but he's also missed some shots he was hitting consistently a few weeks ago. This team badly needs him to return to his December form. I imagine it's got to be a whole lot to handle for the kid though.
• Marvin Jean loves to chuck up long 3-pointers... And you know what? Power to him! He's been hitting them with consistency. He's got a quick release, isn't rattled by collapsing defenders, nor is he shy about just pulling up on a guy. He hasn't shown really anything else offensively, but he also hasn't really needed to. Maybe he's still got some surprises up his sleeve, but regardless, his game has been solid since the injuries set it.
• As for the bench... Jordan Stone had an alright game. He made one really nice move and shot for a score early in the game, but also fumbled a couple Marcel Davis passes that could, and should have been easy scores. I thought Matt Lopez played better than only deserving eight minutes on the floor. Especially with Shaw and Clifford in foul trouble like they were. And Tenale Roland... Seems to be doing at least a little of everything but scoring. This team NEEDS him to be able to be at least a shred of a scoring threat who can hit an occasional 3-pointer.

Coordinated chaos via #USUwhiteboard

The following is a public service announcement of maybe the biggest boost the USU crowd could get to help the team weather this recent wave of injuries. Read carefully!

Over at The Front Row Show, we've spent quite a bit of time lately talking about ways to coordinate the chaos in The Spectrum. Once upon a time a few weird kids were making this newsletter for every home game, but those two losers both graduated, leaving the rest of the crowd without compilations of heckling material.

But there's always been the whiteboards to give updates on heckleworthy things players have done during games. They've led to countless chants and targeted heckling at opposing players, and really brought plenty to the ruthless atmosphere at The Spectrum.

Lately there have been some excellent people over at USUfans.com trying to dig dirt on opposing players once again though. And to add to both that, and the crazies with whiteboards at games, everyone else can get in on things now too. This time, Twitter will be the unifying force for Aggie fans.

It's simple... If you see or read anything about an opposing player leading up to a game, tweet about it with the #USUwhiteboard hash tag. Or if you see anything stupid a player did or said in the first half, tweet it! At halftime, if you're wanting to bring the fury, search that hash tag and get the latest dirt.

Or maybe you've got something hilarious you wanna get chanting, tag it and tweet it!

It doesn't have to be just a few people getting ideas across during games, it can be everyone. All you gotta do is stay involved, and just search the hash tag before the game and again at halftime.

And if you see the man, the legend, and the genius behind this idea (Mr. Jeff Browning), be sure to give him a high five... Jeff f***ing loves high fives!!

Enter "The Ewing Theory"

Worst case scenario set in Monday morning when the news broke that Kyisean Reed was out for the season and Preston Medlin's wrist was broken.

Those two join Danny Berger and Sean Harris among the Aggies missing significant time this season due to injury. If you really want to turn back time, you can validly throw Brady Jardine's name into that mix as well. However you view it, this is officially the season of the injury bug.

Eight players remain, only two of them with playing experience at USU prior to this season. But each of them had been anticipated to contribute in big ways, and now the pressure is officially on!

Enter, The Ewing Theory!

For those who aren't familiar with The Ewing Theory, it's a study that indicated that the New York Knicks almost always performed better as a team when superstar center Patrick Ewing was either out with injury or benched with foul trouble. The thought is that when a team has a clear-cut superstar like that, the supporting cast will get caught up taking their foot off the gas while waiting for the go-to guy to make a play.

Remove the superstar from the equation, and the supporting cast as a whole rallies together.

Matt Wells running a train on some recruiting!

It was only a few years ago that the idea of beating out schools like Nevada, San Jose State or UNLV was considered a pretty epic recruiting victory for Utah State.

Now the Aggies are beating out big time programs like Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oregon State for some big time prospects. Along with that, quality in-state players seem to be more and more stoked to come to Utah State these days too.

This past recruiting season has been an odd one for USU though. For starters, the amount of early commitments to the Aggies was very much out of the ordinary. In the past, the bulk of USU's commits would come about late in the recruiting season. While plenty of great fits and great players came of it, it often had the sense of USU getting guys that few other schools badly wanted.

Now, USU seems to be the place that many players badly want to be.

Another wild card in this year's recruiting is the coaching change. A lot of these early commits had initially committed to former head coach Gary Andersen. That apparently has resulted in minimal changes though, with a handful of those recruits reaffirming their commitment to Utah State and new head coach Matt Wells. All in all, this is shaping up to be a great class that could set USU up for plenty of future success.

Aggie bench thrown into the fire against Denver

Preston Medlin and Kyisean Reed are injured. Both could possibly be out for a while too, but we're waiting on more details.

So going into Saturday's game against Denver, Jarred Shaw was the lone guy still starting from the Aggies' opening game lineup. Tenale Roland got demoted, Danny Berger is still recovering from dying, and now Medlin and Reed are banged up. The bench that has struggled so badly for USU the past two weeks would all be seeing major minutes and depended on for production, which is something we've badly needed at times and haven't gotten from them. Then factor in that Denver is a team everyone knew would be contending for the WAC title, and this game had "We're f***ed" written all over it.

The optimist deep down in me thought, "Let's see how these guys respond, and maybe this experience will pay off down the road."

After seeing that game, I actually feel like these guys may have learned a quality lesson in stepping up to the challenge.

One pissed off post game report

The team has been playing sloppy basketball for a while now, so really, what did you think was gonna happen???

Utah State played like s*** for the entire three-game homestand, pretty much like they had all season up to this point. They escaped disaster in one of those three games and let the other two stay way too close. But the main thing is that there's been little-to-no improvement in this team throughout the year. And seeing as how usually by this point in the season the team has found its footing and taken things to the next level, the lack of improvement is disturbing.

If there was any legitimate positive to be taken from those three games, it was that the team at least finished games strong.

And that wasn't all that far off on Thursday against New Mexico State either. Only problem is that USU was down by 21 when they decided to get hot from downtown and throw the tiniest shred of interest into this game.

Outside of that, this one was agony to watch. Utah State was out-hustled, out-manned, out-shot, out-passioned, and out-coached... Yes. Marvin f***ing Menzies out-coached Stew Morrill in a basketball game. That is not ok, and is a frustrating indication of where this team and program currently stand.

Speaking of which... 

Pressure is now officially on for the Aggies

At 14-1 overall and 5-0 in WAC play, one would think that Utah State is the clear favorite to keep the momentum up and win the conference this year.

Then you realize that each of those five conference wins came against the bottom five teams in the standings and things get a little less impressive. Especially since only one of those five was a convincing victory, while another required some serious late-game heroics for the Aggies to pull it out.

Now the time of reckoning has come for USU. This is where we'll start to really figure out what this team is made of. Thursday is the first meeting between Utah State and New Mexico State of the year, followed up by a Saturday trip to Denver. If this year's squad truly is a better road team than they are at home (which has seemed to be the case), it's time to really show it. This is a trip that it's doubtful any WAC team will sweep this season. NMSU has the talent to surprise most teams on any night and compete, while Denver is just talented and well-coached.

Aside from being good on the road so far, this Aggie team has seemed to play relative to its competition this season. Whether it's playing down to let San Jose State and Seattle give them fits, or playing up to compete with a Saint Mary's team who, in hindsight, looks like they should have demolished USU pretty handily. 

Now, I'm all for adjusting on the fly, but playing to your competition can get really risky, and eventually one is going to slip away from you. Idaho almost was that game. San Jose State and Seattle weren't far off either. It's something we saw a little bit of with USU football 2009-2011, eventually resulting a few losses that the team just shouldn't have had. But as they all grew, they realized they had the power to control games from start to finish in 2012, and they did.

I'm hoping that this basketball team gets to that point, ideally this season rather than next year. Hell, maybe they've just gotten bored with all the cupcakes on the schedule and are excited to have a reason to play hard once again. Or maybe they just thrive on the pressure and sense of urgency.

Either way, this weekend is where we really start to learn what this team is made of. If they go 0-2, we'll have a steep, but achievable climb to the WAC title. A 1-1 split is still promising, and likely would have USU still in the driver's seat for the regular season crown. And if the boys see the sweep dance on Saturday night, there's no excuse for not bringing home the trophy come March.

14-1 is nice right now. Get it to 16-1, and we'll finally know for sure that we've got something really good on our hands.

Medlin's 25 points propel Aggies to 13th straight

Look at it... People all the way to the top!!!
It's beautiful...

It was an ugly win, yada, yada, yada... But what else is new?

Neither team really put together any big runs in the game, with the biggest being a seven-point run by USU I believe. And I think that was pretty early on too. Or in other words, that game was kinda boring as hell.

San Jose State played some tough defense, which really put the pressure on USU to score the ball. The Spartans also put back an infuriatingly ridiculous amount of put-back shots that just barely rolled into the basket... I don't think I was the only one getting pissed off about that. They beat USU 14-6 in offensive rebounds.

In the closing minutes, there seemed to be a little nervousness that SJSU might make a dramatic late push, but luckily the USU defense held strong.

Can't help but wonder how things would have gone if James Kinney wasn't suspended from SJSU. Regardless, the team is now 14-1 overall, 5-0 in the WAC, won 13 straight, and riding at least a little momentum going into the roadie at New Mexico State. 

THE CROWD
EASILY the best turnout of the season! Really it's not even close either. And what's better is that early on, at least as the team was taking the floor and to start the game, they seemed to be ready to rock.

Drop your razors, it's a BEARD OUT!!!

Don't shave!!!

Any facial hair you have going right now, keep it! Why you ask? Because this Friday at The Spectrum is a beard out!!!

Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like. Wear a beard to the game. Whether it's natural in the form of your own facial hair, one you painted on, a fake one you're wearing, or whatever. Just have a beard at this game.

With Preston Medlin sporting a manly beard of his own while hitting game-saving buzzer-beaters and clutch 3-pointers, it's only fitting that everyone else try to summon the awesome power of the beard. And with all the heat the USU crowd has taken for under-performing this season, maybe we were all just a little bit of facial hair away from reclaiming our title as one of the best student sections in the nation.

Regardless, get jacked up for Friday and be prepared to raise absolute hell. Your voice is going to hurt from all of this, and if you're really doing it right, it'll hurt by halftime. But I promise, playing through the pain only helps it come back stronger the next time around. Before you know it, your voice will be an unstoppable tool of destruction against opposing teams.

The house will be rocking, full of beards and deafening volume. Don't miss this for the world (or any other home game for that matter).

While you count down the days, get jacked up with this video, now updated with brand new highlights!!!

Preston freaking Medlin!!! Aggies win in OT

I said after Thursday's game that sloppy play would eventually catch up to the Aggies. That was almost the case on Saturday against Idaho... almost.

Trailing by eight points with three and a half minutes to go, the Aggies had an obvious uphill battle in front of them. And with their struggles in shooting the ball Saturday, it wasn't exactly looking promising. But the Aggies' defense completely locked down, the offense scored enough to put the game in reach, and finally only one more bit of heroics was needed.

Down 69-66, the Idaho defense had their turn to to show what they were made of, and really, they did pretty well at it. The final play for Utah State as it was drawn up was basically thwarted, sending the Aggies scrambling. Jarred Shaw nearly threw up a desperation 3-pointer, but instead got it to the guy everyone knew the Aggies would be looking to get it to.

When it came to do-or-die for the Aggies, Preston Medlin came through once again! His 3-pointer from the corner sent the game to overtime, sparked the crowd to easily it's biggest frenzy of the season, and might have completely rejuvenated The Spectrum as we once knew it. Somewhere Chaz Spicer is tipping his cap to No. 13 for his heroics.

In overtime, the Aggies pretty much controlled the whole five minutes. Medlin hit another 3-pointer, the defense stayed stout, and they made just enough free throws to put it away and seal maybe the most thrilling win of the season.

Wells picking coaches left and right now

We're almost there... At this point it looks like we just need a defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, and a running backs coach. Not many ideas about who those might be at this point, so stay tuned on those.

As for the coaches we know about, let's run each one down...

KEVIN CLUNE - Linebackers
This was one of the big ones! Obviously retention from the old staff was a priority on several fronts, and maybe none bigger than Clune. All you need to do is look at his body of work and they guys he's coached up to stardom! And even above that, the depth that the Aggies have had at the linebacker position appears pretty excellent as well. In the 3-4 defense, the team needs the linebackers to be stellar, and they have been under Clune.

It's been speculated that Clune could also end up as the pick for defensive coordinator, so we might still be hearing more about him this offseason. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Having him on staff still is huge!

KEVIN MCGIVEN - Offensive coordinator, quarterbacks
The first handful of staff additions were guys retained. This one is a guy re-hired to the Utah State staff. There had been rumors that Matt Wells was struggling to find an offensive coordinator, what with him being an offensive guy himself and undoubtedly wanting a say n things offensively. With that in mind, McGiven looks like a pretty good hire in this spot.

He was a member of Gary Andersen's original staff at USU as the quarterbacks coach, helping coach Diondre Borel to a breakout season in 2009. One has got to think that he and Wells will be working together quite a bit on both offensive scheming and coaching quarterbacks, but if the defensive duo of Andersen and Dave Aranda taught us anything this past season, that can be a tremendous benefit to the program.

With the success McGiven has had as an offensive coordinator on previous coaching stops, as well as having worked under former OC Dave Baldwin during some of Baldwin's better days. Hopefully he took plenty of notes on the things Baldwin did well and was able to be critical of the shortcomings, much like the hope was with Wells a year ago when he stepped into the OC role.

LUKE WELLS - Co-offensive coordinator, tight ends, recruiting coordinator
Matt's bringing little bro to the staff, and little bro is bringing with him a little bit of big time coaching experience. Luke started his coaching career under Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, also sharing the sidelines with the likes of Mike Leach and Mark Mangino. From the looks of things, this could be a pretty big hire for USU.

Looking at the numbers from Luke's time as the tight ends and wide receivers coach at Iowa State, they generally had pretty balanced receiving unit much like Utah State has had the past few years. And while it obviously would be great to have an unstoppable go-to wideout, being able to always put out a consistent unit can be a huge asset.

As for recruiting, it'll be interesting to see what he and the rest of the staff are able to do with the rest of this recruiting season. There aren't a ton of scholarships to go around right now, so you'd have to hope that they're going to aim pretty high with some of these guys.

MARK WEBER - Offensive line
This one hasn't been officially announced yet, but rumor has it that it's a done deal. On a staff of quite a few young coaches, Weber brings a ton of experience to USU. He's coached all over the country at a handful of quality programs (and even some not so quality ones like BYU).

Really don't know a ton about him other than he's got a ton of experience in a bunch of different conferences, so you've got to think he's adaptable to changing styles. We'll probably learn more about him in the coming days when his announcement is officially made.

OTHER COACHING NOTES
USU's official website has listed a few other members of the coaching staff. Among them are Steve Mathis and Mark Andersen. Mathis was essentially the right-hand man of Gary Andersen for the bulk of his time at USU, and it's a bit intriguing that he's sticking around. Mark Andersen is Gary's brother, listed on the roster as the Director of Football Operations/Business Management.

David Fiefia and Kite Afeaki are also listed on the coaching staff too. Fiefia as an offensive graduate assistant and Afeaki as defensive administrative assistant.

Late run seals Aggies' 11th-straight win

Hey, another ugly victory! Sound familiar???

I don't know if this has ever once been the case during the Stew Morrill era, but I honestly believe this team is a better road team than they are at home. Not that many of the wins this year have been at all pretty, and it's nice to actually be winning, but the whole winning ugly thing is bound to backfire at some point.

Maybe it's the tension of playing in front of opposing fans gives them the mental push they need to get fired up, or maybe they get a little too comfortable playing on home turf. Whatever it is, it sure would be nice if this team could get a little more fire when playing in The Spectrum. The tough part about that is that the thing which has traditionally fueled teams of the past has been basically non-existent this year. More on that tomorrow though.

As for this basketball game, Seattle was a bigger, more athletic team than I had imagined would be rolling into town. I'll own up that I didn't do any homework on them, so it's really nothing more than me being guilty of typecasting them of what I envision a WAC underdog to be. That size and athleticism worked pretty well for them though, especially when it came to tossing double-teams on Preston Medlin and throwing a guy with a major height advantage up in Spencer Butterfield's grill.

Headlines from around AggieLand

With all kinds of holiday cheer going around, time to write hasn't exactly been abundant. But hey! The holidays are over now, so we can finally get caught up on everything!

Let's talk some of the recent headlines...

BASKETBALL BEATS TEXAS STATE 81-57
Welp... They really stuck it to me as far as that whole "cohesion" thing is concerned. The team got some chemistry going for them to the tune of 21 assists on Monday night. Spencer Butterfield was responsible for nine of those, going nicely with his 18 points and six rebounds. There's your player of the game right there.

Preston Medlin was dynamite once again too though, scoring 21 points, including five 3-pointers. he also had six rebounds in the game. Medlin is now fully dominating offensively like most people expected him to do. He's averaging 21 points per game over the last four contests and has hit on 15-of-31 attempts from behind the 3-point line.

Refreshing to see the team with 10 steals too when they haven't been forcing tons of turnovers just yet. Free throws are apparently still a big concern though.

Regardless, the team is now 2-0 in WAC play, which is a solid start to have. Now they've got two weeks and three home games to come together a bit more before the next road tests at New Mexico State and at Denver.

Oh, and they've won 10 in a row now... Maybe come out and see this team?

SHAVER AND BOUKNIGHT STAYING ON FOOTBALL STAFF
One would think that we'll really start hearing more about coaching hires now that the holidays are over and bowl games are wrapping up. Still, we got a little bit of news late last week with the announcements that coaches Jovon Bouknight and Kendrick Shaver will be staying on staff at Utah State under new head coach Matt Wells.