Aggies ride a big red dog to victory on senior night

Utah State opened WAC play this season with a four-point win over UTSA, with Preston Medlin and Kyisean Reed combining for 33 points. Ben Clifford and Tenale Roland weren't really factors in that game either, combining for only three points. So with that in mind, this game looked like a potentially dangerous one.

Nobody told the Aggies though...

USU came out, slowly built a small lead, slowly built on that lead, and slowly twisted the knife on the Roadrunners throughout the entire game.

It was all Clifford and Spencer Butterfield in the first half, with the two of them combining for 23 of USU's 25 points. Clifford kept on pwning n00bs in the second half, with Roland, Jarred Shaw, and even Matt Lopez getting in on the scoring.

When it all came down to it, the Aggies just kind of dominated in every area in this game. The bulk of those details are worthy of bullet points, so let's cut the crap and get to it!

NOTES

•  22 assists to only 10 turnovers!!! Happy happy, joy joy.
• Nine blocks for the team. It seems like they've been blocking the hell out of teams lately, which I'm just fine seeing more of!
• Oh hi Matt Lopez! Very nice to see you! Eight points on 4-4 shooting with two rebounds and two blocks in only six minutes will do just fine! Again, happy happy, joy joy!
• Spencer Butterfield only had three rebounds, which drops his rebounding average over the last two games to only 11.5 per game. Throw in 14 points and five assists and you've got another solid game, but really what else would you expect from him?
• Jarred Shaw seemed content to let Clifford steal the show down low tonight, but still finished with 11 points and nine boards. Next week is time for Shaw to really kick things into FYM, and remind everyone else in the WAC that he is Jarred Shaw, and they are not.
• Not a bad showing once again from Tenale Roland. He's really been a completely new player out there ever since Bracketbuster weekend. Scored 14 points (all in the second half), pulled down six boards, dished three assists, and even had a block.
• Marvin Jean's 10 rebounds, four assists, a steal, and a block are all pretty good looking. His 1-8 shooting is not. He badly needs to find his shot again because he can be a major X-factor going into next week if he gets hot.

SENIOR NIGHT - KYISEAN REED

It was heart-wrenching to have to bid farewell to this team's lone senior without him being able to suit up. It was the second year in a row too that a senior wasn't able to play because of injury. But for what it's worth, it looked like Kyisean was smiling for a lot of the game, and just seemed to be happy to be there with his teammates.

Everything about this dude just bleeds character. Whether it's how far he developed his game from last season to this one, to the reports of how good a student he has been at USU, there's nothing you could not like about this guy.

We'll be left to only wonder forever how much different this season could have been with him for these last couple months, and how special a moment there might have been if he'd thrown down one last high-flying dunk on his senior night.

Basketball aside, dude is going places in life. And even though his time was cut way too short, I know I'm not alone when I say I'm damn proud that Kyisean Reed is an Aggie!

Player of the Game: Ben Clifford

With 11 first-half points, it looked like Ben Clifford would finally break his previous career-high of 14 points. Turns out he shattered that, going off for 21 points to go with eight boards, three assists, and three blocks. All-around great game from him, but maybe most impressive was the ways in which he scored. Posting up, finishing on a fast break, hitting mid-range jumpers; all of it was a showing of how dangerous he can be as a player. He may never be a superstar, but he's been pretty steadily dependable through two full regular seasons now, and it looks like these major minutes he's been playing will really pay off down the road.

Aggies load up the statsheet for win No. 20

After that abysmal showing against Arlington last week that not even I could bear to write about, USU bounced the hell back on Thursday against probably the WAC's worst team. And even though Texas State is a total patsy, the Aggies pretty thoroughly dominated them, which is what they needed to do in this one.

The finish by USU pretty damn awful, but that's sort of tradition when the Aggies have a late lead. It seems like if the team is down big, they're the ones making the strong push late, and if they're up big, all basketball ability seems to vacate.

A win is a win though, and some of the numbers put up are pretty encouraging. Let's bullet point the rest.

Let's never talk about this night again...

This song seems to have the kind of somber feel that is going on right now... So if you care for music while you read, click ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj75Arhq5ho

If any Aggie fans told themselves at any point recently that it couldn't possibly get worse, the universe just delivered them a hearty bitch slap.

From the start, USU wasn't in this game. The eternal optimist in me hoped that maybe they could climb out of a massive hole much like they did back in a 2007 game against Oral Roberts to pull off a hard-earned win against the odds.

Shaw plays the role of the warden. Good Aggies win!

Rivalry games... Gotta love em!

There's just something about that feeling of pure hate when you see that opposing team even warming up. It's like a whole new reminder of what you despise when you finally see them in person. Then it seems like pretty much everything they do just pisses you off more.

But a 19-5 lead can quickly turn all anger into joy, and that's what Utah State built early against New Mexico State. Then things suddenly took a swing into NMSU's favor, and it seemed to coincide with when Sim Bhullar went to the bench. After Jarred Shaw established early on that he was going to attack Bhullar down low and make him respect the mid-range jumper as well, Bhullar was largely ineffective. Shaw's mobility was the biggest advantage (outside of actual talent) that he had over Bhullar, and that was the difference maker in the paint.

Really outside of that run NMSU made following the 19-5 lead and the last minute of the second half, the Good Aggies never really seemed to lack total control of this game. They moved the ball well, shot well, limited turnovers, were aggressive while staying out of foul trouble... Pretty much everything a team needs to do to win against a bigger, faster opponent.

I only say "pretty much" because of how bad that last minute of play was for USU. I can't imagine managing that all any worse than they did. Tenale Roland looked like he was completely unaware of the 10-second rule, dribbling backwards more often than forward. And the team as a whole was way too content to just hold on to the ball in the face of a trap. And then the one time they get it up court, it ends up in the hands of Jordan Stone, sending him to the free throw line for the front-end of a 1-and-1 (which you could guess how that one ended up).

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.

Basketball wins free throw contest against Weber State

In keeping with this season's theme of winning ugly, Utah State outlasted Weber State in what seemed to be much more of a free throw contest than a basketball game at times.

USU came out looking about like we've seen them look so far this year offensively. Not the most crisp of things, but able to score on pure talent. Jarred Shaw was at the center of things once again, controlling the paint on both ends of the floor. Dude has established himself quite nicely so far this season, and that's without having the offense feeding him quality looks in the post like it will as these guys learn things better.

As things are, you can tell this team still has a long way to go in learning the offense and really just developing at this level. It's nothing out of the ordinary really, it just takes a bit sometimes, and the more rookies there are, the tougher that process becomes (maybe the same can be said for the crowd?)

Anyway, you could tell for the bulk of the first half that Weber State was the more experienced team, which became especially more obvious because they run such a similar system as we're used to seeing here. For once though, the Aggies got to be the team, who despite being much more raw, was able to capitalize on size and athleticism advantages.

Long story short with the first half: Weber had a slight lead for the bulk of it, but USU overcame sloppy play to keep pace and enter the break tied at 28.

Recapping basketball's first look of 2012-13

I can't help but speculate that at least some part of the reasoning for scrapping the Blue and White game this year has to do with some guys getting over-hyped from a good showing in a lowly scrimmage. First impressions go a long way, and those scrimmages were often the forum for those first impressions. So when a guy makes a great first impression, it's going to get talked about and that performance will often be referenced throughout a season by sites like this one.

Can't really fault Stew Morrill for wanting to keep those first impressions limited to at least an actual game situation... But that's not going to stop anyone from giving thoughts on everyone's performance!

So... Let's break down each player's performance from Friday's win over Grand Canyon, and hopefully not have to be eating any of these words in a month or two when we have a better feel for everyone. Doing it position-by-position.


POINT GUARDS
 
Tenale Roland - Among projected starters, Roland is the newest to the show, but still fit in quite nicely! Shot 3-6 from the field and 1-2 from 3-point range for eight points. Not bad for a first rodeo! He also added a Quayle-esque six rebounds, but more of the "in the right position to get the bounce" rather than the "jump way higher than everyone else" kind of boards. Not going to read too much into him only having one assist as he's still learning things. But considering the learning curve, not having a single turnover in 20 minutes of play is very encouraging!

Ahhh, it's good to be back in The Spectrum!!!

It was somewhat of a new feeling Friday in The Spectrum. Amid all the excitement of basketball starting, there was still the looming excitement of watching the USU football team take the field on Saturday morning. Usually by this time of the year, football has everyone feeling down and basketball is the saving grace of excitement. Even last year, that was the case with the football team standing at a 2-5 record when basketball's first exhibition rolled around.

For once, we have the best of both worlds, and oh what a glorious time it is!!!

If anyone had suspected the success and excitement around football might suck away some of the hype for basketball, it didn't take long to be proved wrong Friday night. The Spectrum was rocking to start off the game with a student section that was easily at least 75 percent full.

2011-12 Final grades: Ben Clifford

Ben Clifford - Freshman
36 games, 4 starts
 ________________________
Averages
16.8 minutes
4.4 points
3.5 rebounds
0.36 assists
50.9% - FG
38.9% - 3pt
72.9% - FT


I made no secret early on about my feelings toward Ben Clifford. He became my underdog that I wanted to see succeed after only a few games with his always solid rebounding, never half-assing his effort defensively and his overall motor playing out there. It seemed obvious that he cared as much as anyone else out there earlier on in the year, long before the team found the collective passion that drove them to finish the season as strong as they did (and hey, huge kudos to everyone on that one!)

With the chance to make a historical comparison or two, you know I'm going to! The last USU big man to play as a freshman without two years of growing up on a mission was the legend himself, Nate Harris. Harris, like Clifford, redshirted his first year at USU and was the primary big man off the bench as a redshirt freshman. How the numbers stack up are a bit surprising, keeping in mind that they somehow both managed to average exactly 16.8 minutes per game in their freshman years.

Harris:   5.1 ppg, 3.2 rpg. 16 assists, 39 TOs, 11 blk, 21 stl. - 60.9% FG - 0.0% 3pt - 60.3% FT
Clifford: 4.4 ppg, 3.5 rpg. 13 assists, 30 TOs, 17 blk, 16 stl. - 50.9% FG - 38.9% 3pt - 72.9% FT

Final Four!!! Final Four!!! Aggies win, 77-69

This ad was fitting to be gracing the front page of the USU Athletics website!

Before saying anything else, let me just say, "free throws!"

In a season where missed free throws have haunted the Aggies in close games, and when the team is shooting worse from the charity stripe as any other USU team since 2005, USU kicked that trend to the curb tonight in the best of ways. The Aggies made 32-of-35 free throws tonight, which was nearly 20 percent better than the team's season average, and eventually the difference in the game.

USU was also solid on the boards, grabbing 43 rebounds in the game. When all was said and done, they needed every one of them. The Aggies gave up a season-high 22 turnovers, while having just 14 assists,  but luckily LMU turned the ball over 19 times.