LOGAN – Utah State bounced back from its 23-point loss to Boise State in a big way on Tuesday, crushing the visiting Wyoming Cowboys by 20 points, 83-63, to get back on the winning track.
The Aggies are now 3-0 following losses this season. But not only are the Aggies undefeated after losses, they’ve won by an average of 19 points in those three game-after-loss situations with an overall shooting percentage of 57.1 and a 3-point percentage of 47.6. USU forward Taylor Funk said responding the way they have this season is “just trusting what we do.”
“Big words for us are champions always answer,” Funk said. “It’s pretty easy to come into practice after a loss like that, heads down. But that’s just not this group, whatsoever. We come in, same energy as if we just won by 20. It’s kind of hard to imagine that but it’s the truth for sure.”
The dominance was clear early as Utah State clamped down on the Cowboys and jumped out to a double-digit lead less than seven minutes into the game. Wyoming’s rather unique offense has created issues in the past for the Aggies, but not this time. Wyoming shot just 39.1 percent from the field, its fourth-worst mark of the season coming off of a four-game stretch where the Cowboys hade made a combined 50 percent of its field goals.
Funk said he thought the team “executed the game plan pretty well” but also gave a lot of credit to the coaches for getting it ready.
“Coaches were really on this one,” Funk said. “(It was) a short two days to game plan for this but I think all credit goes to them. They really hit this one on the nail.”
Part of that game plan included guarding Wyoming’s 6-foot-7 star wing, Hunter Maldonado, with a combination of the 6-foot-8 Sean Bairstow and the 6-foot-9 Dan Akin. Having Akin was a rather unique approach to guarding Maldonado seeing as Akin is usually the center in most lineups. But it’s one that made sense given how Maldonado plays the game.
“He’s 6-7, obviously posts up a lot,” Akin said. “Pretty good match for me. Obviously I had to stay in front of him and then obviously I can hold my own in the post. So definitely a pretty good matchup.”
Maldonado still had 20 points, but didn’t have the same impact as a 20-point scorer might. He also had four turnovers on the night, three of those coming in the first half as Utah State built its initial lead.
On offense the Aggies were buttery-smooth, racking up 21 assists on 31 made field goals. They did shoot a solid 8-for-18 on threes (44.4 percent) but USU did most of its damage in the paint. The Aggies scored 46 points in the paint, with nearly half (30 of 61) field goal attempts being layups or dunks. Akin and Bairstow racked up most of those dunks. Bairstow had three including a post dunk late in the second half.
“(Wyoming) want to limit assists, limit 3-point attempts,” Funk said. “And we kind of made them pay for that. Although we did make a good amount of threes we also hammered them in the paint.”
Early in the second half Wyoming made its first and only overture toward making Tuesday’s game a real contest. Down 40-26 at halftime, the Cowboys brought the game to within eight points, 42-34. From there, though, Utah State controlled the game starting with a 12-2 run that turned the brief hope of a Wyoming comeback into the largest Aggie lead to that point.
Later in the half, Utah State put on another scoring burst – good for a 9-0 run – that built the lead all the way to 25, the largest it got for the night. Fittingly it was an Akin dunk that capped that run and shortly afterward Bairstow’s poster materialized.
Leading the way in points was Funk, who continued his return to stellar form after a seven-game cold spell. He tied his season high in points with 22 (18 of which came before halftime. In his last three games, Funk has shot 56.3 percent from the field and 58.8 percent from three.
Akin also filled the stat sheet, tying his season high of 15 rebounds and also scoring 16 points. Bairstow added 14 points, Max Shulga also had 14 points to go with six assists. Steven Ashworth had eight points, seven assists and six rebounds.
Next up for Utah State will be a road matchup with Nevada on Friday. The Wolf Pack are coming off a 74-65 home loss to No. 23 San Diego State. Prior to that loss Nevada had been undefeated in conference play and overall are 14-4 on the season. That game will tip off at 9 p.m. Mountain Time.
