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LOGAN — Courting again to their days within the WAC, the Nevada-Utah State matchup has typically been one to elicit drama.
It was becoming then for the chaos to crescendo on the evening of Jaycee Carroll’s jersey retirement.
In entrance of a sellout Spectrum crowd wanting to witness the halftime ceremony for the Aggies’ all-time main scorer, Utah State trailed the Wolf Pack by 21 factors within the first half to dampen the upcoming celebration and put its NCAA Match at-large aspirations on life assist.
However on an evening catered to Carroll — who typically received the higher of Nevada all through his profession — Utah State sparked some second half magic to extinguish the deficit and to beat Nevada 75-66.
Steven Ashworth scored 20 factors, and Utah State held Nevada to 25% taking pictures within the second half to present the house staff an opportunity on the comeback. The win put the Aggies a half recreation behind Nevada within the standings and provides it a possible Quad 1 win, pending Nevada’s closing NET rating.
“I informed the staff after the sport, the very first thing I stated to them was there is not any stat actually that may describe how that recreation went,” Utah State head coach Ryan Odom stated. “You possibly can’t have a look at one factor and say because of this. That recreation, to me, and to our staff, was all about composure. It was all about enjoying with coronary heart and grit.”
Issues could not have began worse for the Aggies, although. Wolf Pack ahead Will Baker scored a scorching 22 factors on 6-of-6 taking pictures within the first 5 minutes of play, and the 9,157 followers in attendance have been silenced because the guests opened up the sport with a 31-9 lead.
The Aggies, who’re accustomed to giving up giant scoring runs, did not whither, although.
The hosts stepped up the defensive effort and held Baker to only 3 factors for the rest of the sport. The Wolf Pack opened up 14-of-15 from the sector, after which completed 9-of-40. Within the closing 12:33 of the sport, Nevada made only one area aim.
“It was just about simply making an attempt to make them take robust pictures time and again,” RJ Etyle-Rock stated. “We knew they began scorching, however we knew they could not stand up to that the entire recreation. Baker received off to a scorching begin, however we made an adjustment of making an attempt to modify early and get a excessive hand to him, and ultimately he was going to overlook or we did not even need him taking pictures after he began making the primary couple. That was just about the adjustment.”
Within the second half, Utah State discovered key contributions on offense from a number of gamers.
Max Shulga (13 factors) hit two step-back 3-pointers, Sean Bairstow (5 factors) had a coast-to-coast dunk, Etyle-Rock (10 factors) scored a transition layup with 10:20 remaining to even up the rating at 57-57, and Ashworth’s 3-pointer gave Utah State its first lead with 9 minutes left.
Sticking to script, although, the Aggies did not make it simple on itself down the stretch. The staff completed simply 23% from 3-point vary, and a number of other deep seems to be from Ashworth (2-of-10) and Taylor Funk (0-o- 6) rimmed out. The Wolf Pack hung round regardless of its personal taking pictures woes, and a Jarod Lucas 3-pointer rattled in with 2:26 left to even the rating at 64-all.
Utah State completed sturdy, although, as a staff in want of a high quality win in entrance of its raucous crowd.
An and-one layup from Dan Akin (12 factors) with 1:10 left to play gave the Aggies a 3-point lead, and the staff received stops on protection as Ashworth buried eight free throws to seal the sport.
“That is why you’re keen on enjoying in entrance of a sellout crowd, as a result of they will help flip the momentum for you want that. We positively fed off of that, and I feel that because it got here down the stretch, they did not should play with the stress that we needed to play with via the entire recreation,” Ashworth stated. “So, when it type of got here right down to these crunch minutes, we have been already used to feeling that all through the entire recreation, which, I feel, gave us the higher hand within the closing couple of minutes.”
Now 21-7 on the season and ranked thirty seventh in KenPom, Utah State nonetheless has work to do to nab an at-large bid with three regular-season video games remaining. Incomes its largest win of the season in entrance of a number of Aggies legends — from Carroll, Gary Wilkinson and Stew Morrill — is undoubtedly a pleasant place to start out.
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