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.


Would have been nice if a thriller of a game could have accompanied that, but still the turnout was great. Let's hope they come back for more.

On a side note, the "Aggie football" chant was fantastic and beautifully timed with the arrival of the football recruits. Changing the chant to halfway through to "Future champions" was just absolute ****ing brilliance!!! So many hell yeahs to the students for that one.

JARRED SHAW'S POST GAME
Dude can absolutely dominate the rebounding game if he wants to, which he did for most of the first handful of games this season. Then he hit a slump, but Friday showed a little bit of his earlier self in taking over when the team needed a big rebound.


Offensively, Shaw has been a tiny bit frustrating lately. He's clearly trying to establish himself more as a back-to-the-basket big man, which would be tremendous for this team. That's been a rocky road though so far. Too often, Shaw has had trouble getting that little baby hook shot off without getting pushed off the block by defenders. He's hit a few here and there, but nowhere near the consistency that you'd expect from a big man in that role (a la Tai Wesley).

A few times though, Shaw was the one out-manning his defender and getting the opponent off balance and getting a quality shot off. If he can make this a regular thing, USU's post scoring is going to go up by quite a bit, and in turn bring a whole new, and much-needed dimension to the offense.

Stay tuned on this one.

NOTES

• This team BADLY needs bench production right now. Only four points against SJSU, six against Idaho, and 11 against Seattle. That's a combined 10 bench points over the last two games, and 21 over three games. The talent looks to be there, but something just isn't clicking for them. And their combined scoring has gone down in three straight games.
• The whole team is still struggling to force turnovers too, with SJSU only committing six on Friday. USU's opponents have the second fewest turnover total in the WAC this season.
• Spencer Butterfield is still all that is man. Finished with 13 points on 5-6 shooting to go with five rebounds.
• Marcel Davis has an off night with shooting, but still dished four assists. And in case you need him, he's leading the WAC in assist-to-turnover ratio.
• We finally thought we were getting a dynamite moment to cap the game when Kyisean Reed was on a breakaway at the end... And we got a layup... 10 points, eight boards and four blocks though. Solid game once again for him. And that put-back dunk at the start of the game was pretty excellent too.
• Aggies got beat in points in the paint, points off turnovers, 2nd chance points, fast break points, and bench points... yet they rarely trailed in this one. Ugly as it may be, this team knows how to win.

Player of the Game: Preston Medlin

No doubts once again... Preston Medlin was the man on Friday. A season-high 25 points to go with five assists and hitting on 11-11 from the free throw line got it done. He's now averaging 22 points per game in WAC play, tops in the conference, and it doesn't seem like he'll slow down any time soon.