Giving basketball a look ahead to 2013-14

Spring football got underway today, which is pretty freaking exciting! But there won't be shoulder pads in the mix for a couple more days, and not a whole lot to report in the department, so I'm going to hold off on talking about that until after Thursday when they practice in the afternoon and we can all go and get ourselves and nice, personal look at things.

In the meantime, let's give some quick takes on USU basketball's current forecast of how next season could play out with personnel. Obviously things could change a little bit between now and maybe the middle of summer, but my guess is it would be minimal.

On paper, USU looks to be in pretty decent shape for next year, assuming they can stay healthy this next time around. It's worth taking a quick look at, so let's hit these positions really quick.

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... 

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.

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.

Another ugly one, but Aggies win again

There's that old saying that says, "You've gotta slay a few dragons before you can finally rescue the princess." Put plainly, it's referring to hooking up with girls you wouldn't brag to anyone about before eventually finding that one gem to settle down with.

That's how I'm hoping things are going for this Aggie basketball team right now. They just keep knocking out these ugly victories, but eventually things are going to get a whole lot prettier.

In their defense, last year the team was losing a handful of these ugly games. To be 10-1, even if you haven't really tackled any titans, is still a very good record to be sitting on. Much like my feeling was prior to the Gossner's tournament, this team still looks like a group of very talented basketball players who have yet to really come together as a cohesive unit.

They've shown flashes, and I don't think I was alone in hoping that the win against Southern Illinois would be a sign of better things to come. That very well could be the case still and they just had another struggle on the road. Again though, 3-0 on the road now. That's something to be happy about, especially since one of those was against a Santa Clara team who hung around against the No. 1 team in the country over at Cameron Indoor on Saturday morning.

Aggies ride strong second half to beat UC Davis

Thursday the Aggies had a big lead to start the second half and saw their opponent slowly chip away to make it a game.

Friday was the opposite. UC Davis went into halftime leading 40-39, but in the second half, Utah State took back the lead and slowly widened it as time rolled on.

It was still an ugly game for the most part, but I dare say it was at least a little bit better looking than Thursday's affair. The key to Friday's win was Preston Medlin stepping up as the offensive weapon we all know he is, breaking the 20-point barrier for the first time this season. Maybe more importantly, he looked like he had that assassin's mentality once again.

It's funny how a slump can weigh down on you, no matter how capable of playing better you know yourself to be. But once that slump is broken, everything feels comfortable all over again. That's what it looked like after Medlin really got things going offensively in the first half. It seemed like he knew that if he forced the action on UC Davis, that points would end up on the board.

Sure enough, he went off for 23 of them on 9-17 shooting, while also tying for the team-lead in assists with four. And with Jarred Shaw having his first down game of the season, it was perfect timing for Medlin to step up with a big game like that.

Not a ton else to say about this game outside of its ugliness, Medlin's big night, and maybe mention that in that second half the team looked for flashes like they were starting to mesh some more. We saw a lot of that against Western Oregon, but the chemistry seems to be taking its time this season.

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.

Aggies shake off the rust after long layoff

In the case of Danny Berger, it was "Welcome back to the outside world."

In the case of Marcel Davis, it was "Welcome to the show!"

Saturday was USU's first game in 10 days, and the rust was obvious early on. The Aggies turned the ball over on three of their first four possessions, and just looked completely out of sync. Given the long layoff from the court, mixed in with a little bit of trauma and missed practice time, that is all really understandable.

While the Aggies were struggling to score, especially in the paint early on, Western Oregon was hitting shots, forcing the action to do what they wanted, and just all-around making things difficult... We knew that couldn't last long though, and it didn't once the second half got started.

Really this game is summed up in a simple way... First half, sloppy. Second half, crisp and dominant. Final outcome, inevitable.

The team clearly had some emotions running from everything this whole week, and once they shook the rust off, Western Oregon was dead in the water.

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.

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.

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.

An ugly win is still a win... 56-48, Aggies

Nobody said winning had to be pretty, and Saturday night in The Spectrum sure as well was an ugly one! I want to tell myself that this game was just the slumpbreaker that USU needed to get its game back on track after a rough go last season. Just like I want to believe that winning a few postseason games last year, even if it was in the lowly CIT, was beneficial just to shake that monkey off our backs.

And since the team stands at 1-0, ugly as that one might have been, I'll stick with the slumpbreaker theory and hold on to the hope that things only get prettier from here.

For the bulk of Saturday's game, the Utah State offense was out of sync. And while that's nothing out of the ordinary for a team early in the season, it kind of seemed to be even more out of sync than we'd normally see to start things off.

Defensively though, USU managed to make up for just enough of the offensive woes to keep Idaho State out of it for the bulk of the game. The Bengals only hit on 39.6 percent of their shot attempts from the field, and just 27.3 percent from the 3-point line. The Aggies also outrebounded ISU 36-23, had seven steals and three blocks.

So when the Bengals had only scored 37 points with just under 10 minutes remaining in the second half, that'll usually be a solid enough defensive game for the Aggies to hold on and win... Except that the offense was only at 37 at that same point. USU scored just seven points through the first 10 minutes of the second half, which is as bad of an offensive cold streak as I can remember seeing here.

Basketball schedule predictions - Preview part 2

Part 2a of 2c

As promised, here is part two of this little bold basketball preview, or at least part of part two. Today's task is predicting the schedule.

But for all of you out there hoping I'll do something stupid and set myself up to be brutally chastised for bad picks down the road, sorry to tell you that I'm only doing the first eight games, which is close enough to one third of the season. Why you ask? Well, teams grow up along the way, and getting too far ahead of things just would be irresponsible for making accurate predictions. Gotta get a feel for both USU's squad, as well as the competition.

Now on the downside, this means you'll have to deal with another set of predictions like this in a few weeks. For now though, let's try and accurately predict the start of this season.
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Idaho State - 11/10
In ISU's last three visits to The Spectrum, Utah State has won by an average of 31 points. This Bengal team lost to USU by 13 in their own house last year, and in a game where even Igor Premasunac even played double-digit minutes. Adam Thoseby also started that game and scored 16 points.
Prediction: Blowout win

Saint Mary's - 11/15
Things get real interesting in just the second game of the year. Saint Mary's returns a ton of talent from a very good team, including Matt Dellavedova. Joining them will also be former Aggie James Walker, as well as former SUU Thunderbird and first opposing player to cry in The Spectrum in the 2010 season, center Matt Hodgson. Not returning however will be Clint Steindl, who hit numerous big shots against USU in past games. This will be an epic battle of which only something as powerful The Spectrum prevails... That, and Brady Jardine heckling on the front row to remind Mitchell Young of the manhood he lost forever back in 2011.
Prediction: Aggies win a thriller

Texas A&M Corpus Christi - 11/17
Sad that this has to be a revenge game, but it is, and revenge will be had. Preston Medlin goes off for 40 points to bring his scoring average against these guys to 20 points per game.
Prediction: USU wins by 22

Weber State - 11/24
Speaking of revenge games... Weber State was a great team last year with the early frontrunner for NBA Rookie of the Year running that show. This year will be a step back, but probably not nearly as much as people expect. They're still a talented team with a fantastic coach, which will make this game a far cry from a cakewalk victory.
Prediction: Aggies win by 9

@Santa Clara - 11/28
Finally hitting the road after four games at home, USU faces off against a Santa Clara team who returns its top NINE scorers from last season. Problem is they were a team that went 8-22, including 0-16 in West Coast Conference play. Because of the experience and home court, they'll be tough, but a nice early road test for this USU team.
Prediction: USU by 6

@BYU - 12/5
The second straight road test against a WCC team gets a lot tougher down in that hellhole of Provo. Both teams look solidly loaded with talent, but BYU's squad has more experience playing together, which should give them a decent advantage. Not to mention, Brandon Davies will probably want to try and put on a show in front of his kids. My shameless homerism/ambition wants to pick a win, but since such picks in the past have backfired when going on the road to Provo/Hell, I'll defer to the team to prove me wrong on this one. It's a prediction I'd gladly be horribly incorrect about.
Prediction: Aggies fall short by 8 points... (insert swear words)

Western Oregon - 12/8
A nice little, "thanks for coming guys" kind of game to lump into the middle of the early part of the season. Against this team three years ago, Modou Niang outscored Brian Green and Preston Medlin combined!!! And no, that wasn't made up.
Prediction: Aggies win by however much they feel like


@Utah Valley - 12/15
These guys are a bit of a wild card this year. They hung with USU in The Spectrum last year, but are now without their light-it-up scorer Isiah Williams. While Ben Aird and Holton Hunsaker are decent players, it's tough to imagine them overpowering Jarred Shaw and Tenale Roland by any wide margin, if at all. They'll probably make it interesting for a bit, but Shaw, Roland and that Medlin kid will be too much for them to handle. Plus, UVU has one of these guys on its roster.
Prediction: Aggies win by 11
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That right there carries us all the way into the Gossner's tournament, where I'll get back here and make some picks on how the next part of the season will go from there. As is, I'm picking the Aggies to start off 7-1. A few of those games could swing a different direction, most notably Saint Mary's and Santa Clara, but hell... that's part of what makes it fun!!

Basketball rolls again in second exhibition game

The funny thing about Saturday's exhibition win over Simon Fraser is that there were a few stretches where it seemed like the Aggies weren't even playing that well. Yet during those stretches, the USU lead continued to widen, eventually leading in a dominating final score of 92-56.

Regardless of how it appeared, the Aggies dominated on Saturday against an actual NCAA team, even if they're Division-2. That's a classification that not a lot of past exhibition opponents can claim, and that Simon Fraser team was certainly bigger, more athletic and much more skilled than the likes of Laval University that past USU teams have played in exhibition.

Now consider that Laval is the only exhibition team that the Aggies have beaten worse in the last six years than the 36-point win against Simon Fraser on Saturday. Suddenly this team is looking pretty solid with that in mind. And things are only going to continue to tighten up and get more crisp for USU as this season goes on.

To me, that says that this Utah State team will be able to win ugly this year. Even when things aren't exactly in rhythm offensively, USU's size, athleticism and just natural skill will help them still put points on the board and frustrate teams defensively. That's the one thing I take most from this game, and that's one hell of a positive attribute to have!

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.