Missouri
Utah State nabs NCAA Tournament 10 seed, will face Missouri in Sacramento
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LOGAN — Within the second season of Ryan Odom’s tenure, Utah State goes to the NCAA Event.
Picked a tenth seed, the Aggies will face No. 7 seed Missouri in a primary spherical matchup on Thursday in Sacramento, California.
It is the fourth time in 5 years that Utah State has certified for the event, doing so by compiling a 26-8 document to earn an at-large bid.
The Aggies have been picked to complete eighth within the Mountain West preseason ballot, however the Aggies exceeded expectations and completed tied for second within the convention and reached the convention event title sport.
Regardless of dropping All-Mountain West forwards Justin Bean and Brandon Horvath from final season’s NIT crew, the Aggies took a leap ahead because of the event of guards Steven Ashworth, Max Shulga and Sean Bairstow, and the stellar play of entrance court docket transfers Taylor Funk and Dan Akin.
The Aggies opened the common season with a program finest 9-0, defeating 4 groups inside the highest 100 of the NET within the span, together with fellow NCAA Event crew Oral Roberts.
The crew confronted setbacks halfway via the season, although, and blew an enormous result in Weber State at residence in December and dropped a impartial website sport to lowly SMU. In January, it misplaced three street convention video games towards Boise State, Nevada and San Diego State by double digits in January, and misplaced start line guard Rylan Jones to harm.
Pushing previous the midseason letdowns, the Aggies continued to shine its offense because it raised its stage of defensive depth and physicality.
In February, Utah State hit its stride and received residence video games over New Mexico, Nevada and Boise State to play its manner again into the bubble dialog. A robust displaying within the Mountain West Event solidified its event standing. Utah State beat New Mexico 91-76 within the quarterfinals spherical and Boise State within the semifinals earlier than it misplaced to San Diego State within the title sport
Utah State’s general resume speaks volumes. The crew completed the season with a 2-5 document in Quad 1 video games, 9-1 in Quad 2 video games, 13-0 in Quad 3 and 1-2 in Quad one. The crew boasts the thirteenth finest adjusted offensive effectivity and completed 18th in KenPom rankings and nineteenth the NET.
The Aggies will look to snap an eight sport NCAA Event dropping streak and win its first sport within the Massive Dance since 2002.