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.

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.

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.

Sloppy sloppy sloppy, but Aggies hold on

The optimist in me says, "This is what's nice about the Gossner's Tournament. Get some quality experience at home against teams you should beat even on a crappy night."

The pessimist says, "This team is still struggling way worse than they should, and doubts are starting to arise."

I can't help but think back to last year when we opened the Gossner's against UT-Arlington, only beating them by four. By the last game of the tournament, we beat the piss out of a very good Kent State team.

And that was last year's team, who I doubt many people will try to argue had more talent on its roster than this year's squad. Throw in some actual size down low, some more talent and experience on the wings, and a pair of point guards who are both not too shabby, and there's probably reason to stay optimistic.

Thoughts on a Thursday - 11/29

There's been a serious lack of non-postgame content here lately, and to that I apologize. In my own defense, I could never suspend feelings of guilt of doing the Highs, Lows and I Don't Knows for football when we were blowing out teams every week. Without any "Lows", the triforce is broken up and there's no order to things.

So let's just bust out some quick hits on the news of the day! This is Thoughts on a Thursday (rhyming intentional on that one).

AGGIES WIN THE BEEHIVE BOOT
As many people had understood it, this was going to BYU this year because of their win over Weber State. Apparently that doesn't carry the same weight it used to though... Each one of the Aggies, Utes and 40+ women trying to date much younger guys were 1-1 against each other. And whether it was margin of victory that gave USU the nod to victory in this one, or the fact that they have a 10-win season to their name this year, the media voters sent the Beehive Boot to Logan this year. That makes two of the last three years that it's come to Utah State, and I dare say this is going to be much more of a trend than a rarity moving forward.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLOSION LAST NIGHT
After USU's comeback win at Santa Clara last night, Facebook and Twitter went nuts with posts about the game. With a lot of the more casual/lukewarm fans apparently lacking interest early this year, conveying that kind of excitement all over social media is a nice way to remind them there's still plenty to be excited about.

I've always held the belief that if you want to create a rowdy fan base, that all starts with the die hards. When other people see how much fun the die hards are having and how excited they get about games, eventually they want in on the good times. Some of those people grow into die hards themselves, and some fall away once things go bad. But still, it's the die hards that breed new die hards.

Last night was a thing of beauty!

KYISEAN'S DUNKS
Nice freakin job by the Santa Clara camera crew for managing to somehow miss the bulk of both of Kyisean Reed's monster dunks last night, as well as the play as it happened when Preston Medlin was shooting the game-tying 3-pointer.

THIS ARTICLE ABOUT GARY ANDERSEN...
THIS talks about Gary's plans to stay at USU. People seem to not want to believe it, and maybe that's because in many ways, what Gary has done seems too good to be true. The last line of the article is particularly comforting.


Alright. That's all for today

A rough road, but Aggies win at Santa Clara

Whoa!!! Just whoa!!!

And that's my reaction having only been able to follow the game from ESPN's gamecast on a cell phone while at a concert. I didn't get to see this game, and probably many of you did, so rather than talk you through a game you saw and I didn't, let's share some stories about following a college basketball game on a cell phone while at a rock and roll concert. Hopefully it'll at least be a tiny bit entertaining, since I'm not exactly taking this one too seriously. Plus there's tons of YouTube links, so that will add plenty to it. 

THE RIDE
When the current best band in the entire world (The Wonder Years) wrapped up their set of music, the first score update I got had USU down 30-18. First thought there was more or less, "Ah s***, we're not even going to hang with them in our first road game."

Come to find out later, that deficit wasn't too shabby compared to the 19-4 lead Santa Clara had after six minutes of basketball.

Anyway, throw in a few buckets by Kyisean Reed, some free throws by Slim and a trio of 3-pointers courtesy of Danny Berger and Spencer Butterfield, the Aggies somehow found themselves leading at halftime of this game.

Aggies bounce back, even if it wasn't pretty

While WAC championship mania was taking over Logan, and even The Spectrum, we still had some basketball to played and revenge to be had!

Saturday's game in The Spectrum was once again nothing pretty, but as was the case with Idaho State, the Aggies did enough of what they needed to to win. I don't know if TAMCC just has USU's number or what, but that game went from a close one, then opened up to a blowout for a bit, then slowly got interesting again.

Looking at the stats, it's hard to see how the Islanders stayed into this game. USU outrebounded TAMCC by 10, had 21 assists to only nine turnovers, shot 56.8 percent from the field, and made 23 free throws. The Islanders made a handful of 3-pointers and only committed six turnovers, and that ended up being what made this close.

Shots won't fall. Aggies do. SMC wins 67-58

Right there with you Danny...

Some days it's just not your day.

It doesn't seem like the team has too bad of an attitude about this game either, realizing that the shots just weren't falling for them. It was agonizing to watch that many shots rim out like they did, but it's not like the Aggies lost to a cupcake. USU just got beat by a very good team.

We knew this one was going to be an uphill battle. Saint Mary's has one of the best players in the country, a handful of other seniors and plenty more talent filling out its roster. The match-up problems they had, especially in the back court, were one hell of an advantage over USU. Matthew Dellavedova was absolutely lockdown defensively on Preston Medlin, and when it comes to his own offensive game, Dellavedova probably won't be slowed down by much of anyone with how many ways he can score the ball.

Really, the bulk of the credit needs to go to Saint Marys' entire defense. Utah State missed most of the open looks they got Thursday, but even still, those open looks were sparse at best. Saint Mary's wouldn't let the Aggies get anything going, and the ability to do that is something few teams will have this season. 

CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR
Outside of the early lead USU had, the Gaels controlled the bulk of this game. Their lead slowly grew as the game wore on, and the Aggies couldn't put together enough of a run to close the gap. The closest they got was with just under 5 minutes left when Danny Berger hit a 3-pointer to cut the SMC lead to only three.

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: Kyisean Reed

Kyisean Reed - Junior
36 games, 28 starts
 ________________________
Averages
25 minutes
10 points
5.1 rebounds
0.6 assists
61.4% - FG
0.0 - 3pt
67.9% - FT


Hey, back on the final grades finally as we near mid-June. Better late than never though, and eventually the three leading scorers on last year's team were going to get their big review. So let's put Kyisean on the hot seat and break down his roller coaster of a junior season.

First and foremost, the season was a roller coaster for everyone, which had to have made the task of fitting in as a JUCO transfer that much more difficult for Reed. Still, Reed made it six straight seasons in which the Aggies had a JUCO transfer among the team's top three scorers, joining some pretty impressive company in Brockeith Pane, Nate Bendall, Jared Quayle, Gary Wilkinson and Steve Ducharme. And while Reed's overall season numbers are lower than all of those guys, he put together a couple monster games that could easily stack up against the single best games played during any of these guys' junior seasons.

...and it ends in a loss

Hats off to these guys for never giving up!

The opportunity was rare, but the opportunity was there. Utah State could have capped off an impressive finish to an otherwise frustrating season with a win at home Wednesday night against a Mercer team tasked with winning a long way from home in a venue where almost nobody wins. But when the final buzzer sounded, and the final prayer of a shot clanked off the rim, Utah State found itself in a place that has been far too familiar this season... Just short.

The Spectrum tonight was everything that makes that building so special. The place was buzzing before doors even opened, and anyone that just passively came to the game found themselves fully engaged in everything by the second half when USU started battling back from an early deficit.

Mercer was probably as opposite of a playing style in a team that you could possibly get for USU compared to the game against Oakland. Mercer plays in a very controlled system that shares the ball well, relies on high-percentage shots, and above all else, tough defense. All of those factors undoubtedly frustrated the Aggies early on in a big way, and moderately throughout the entire game.

Still, USU battled, ramped up its defensive pressure and knocked down a handful of big shots from deep. Danny Berger and Preston Medlin were responsible for all five second-half 3-pointers for USU, and every one of them came at a time when USU either needed a big bucket to cool a Mercer run or to widen the lead for the short time USU had it. They were a combined 5-of-11 from deep in the second half. Had they gone 6-of-11, that game would have gone at least five more minutes.

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.

Still alive!! Aggies dominate way to Elite Eight

Sure, it's only the Elite Eight of the CIT, but dammit I'll take it. In all these years in-between the NCAA Tournament letdowns, it has seemed like USU has not taken the NIT seriously. It's not the Big Dance, and with that being the dream destination of every team and every player, still playing after falling short of that goal doesn't seem to inspire and fire in a team.

So far though, it seems like this USU team is busting that trend. Maybe they didn't completely bring their A-game against Bakersfield, but they won. If that winning is contagious, it showed Saturday, along with that A-game against Idaho.

This game was never really in question. From the start, Idaho could not get a shot to fall to save its life and USU was clicking on every level. After getting down huge early on, the Vandals just looked like a team with the life sucked out of them. The shots never fell with much frequency and the Aggies never really slowed down.

It was just kind of a beatdown. It was also possibly the best USU has looked as a team both offensively and defensively in quite some time.

Who we play from here? That is the great mystery when it comes to this tournament.

One down, four to go!

Spring break definitely put a major dent into Wednesday's attendance for USU's opening game of the CIT, but despite that lackluster support and a stellar game from CSUB's Zach Lamb, the Man Challenge is one-fifth of the way completed!!

The game didn't exactly start out horrible for USU, but it wasn't overly pretty either. Granted the first half was all I got to see, so I'm stuck basing my takes on the second half around the following of ESPN's gamecast on a cell phone.

The first half though seemed to basically be the kind of basketball that Stew Morrill would normally murder a team for playing, but in this case, it was working. Things just didn't seem very in control at all, but because Preston Medlin was a man possessed and both Morgan Grim and Kyisean Reed were holding things down in the post better than just ok, the Aggies put together a nice little lead.

Then in the second half, the dramatics came into the picture with the Roadrunners - mostly Zach Lamb - making a thriller out of this one. They fought back from a 12-point halftime deficit to take a 48-46 lead at one point before the Aggies put together another run to grab the lead back. From there, USU had a small lead the rest of the time which they didn't go blowing.

They made it interesting by having NINE second-half turnovers, including four during the final four minutes of the game, as is tradition. But still they held on for a 75-69 victory.

Medlin makes the first team (as he damn well should have!)

All-WAC honors were announced Sunday, and for the most part, they got it right.

The all-WAC first team consisted of Deonte Burton, Wendell McKines, Vander Joaquim, Olek Czyz aaaaand.... Preston Freaking Medlin!!

Earning this honor is nothing short of totally deserved for a player who has been the heart and soul of Utah State basketball this season. If you call yourself an Aggie fan and don't love pretty much everything about Medlin's game, I can only wonder if there's any lead pipe big enough that could knock some sense into you. He plays hard, he plays team ball, he's a very good defender, a phenomenal scorer and above all, you can just tell he loves Aggie basketball like the rest of us.

He is only the second Aggie sophomore ever to earn first-team all-conference honors, joining Nate Harris, who was named to the Big West's first team in 2004. Harris went on the be first-team all-Big West in 2005 and first-team all-WAC in 2006 to become the only Aggie to be three-time first-teamer. Medlin now has the chance to be the second should he keep up the momentum of his game over the next two seasons.

As for the rest of the all-WAC team, everyone knew that Burton and McKines were locks for the first team, with Medlin essentially in that conversation too after USU's strong finish to climb back up to at least the top-half of the league.

From there, things were largely up in the air for the other two spots. Hawaii had a couple guys worthy of consideration, Kevin Olekaibe is a superstar deserving of first team honors, and for how thoroughly Nevada dominated the conference, you couldn't count out them getting two guys on the first team.

Kyisean finds his happy thought, does some flying, Aggies win

Before saying anything else, a big "hell yeah" goes out to Brockeith Pane for dishing six assists without a single turnover. Nine points, four rebounds, a block and a steal will widen that smile too.

This win was one of those games where I kept on wondering when we were going to pull ahead and just blow them out already. Then we did, and there was much rejoicing. The way the Aggies were shooting, it really just seemed like a matter of time, but the Bulldogs went through those couple hot streaks from deep that cockblocked USU from pulling away.

Then Kyisean Reed happened...

Two in a row! Two in a row!

"Bad ass" understates this photo

For the second time this season, the Aggies are on a winning streak! And for the second game in a row, USU racked up assists like they were a Utah State basketball team!

Outdoing Thursday's 17-assist effort, the team had better than 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio Saturday, dishing out 19 dimes while giving up a season-best six turnovers. Or in other words, it was a hell of a team effort. If the team can play with that kind of chemistry the rest of the year, we just might actually turn some heads.

Really with the way the team came out tonight, and how they essentially looked in control for almost the entirety, this game wasn't ever in doubt. And certainly not after Mitch Bruneel had anything to say about things either. Basically the Aggies won this game in every statistical category except the turnover battle. Rare will it be the case that you can lose the turnover battle with only six TOs, but winning in shooting percentages, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and points will have to do for now.

Not much else to really say about this game before getting into the individual props, so let's get on with it, eh?