Utah State head men’s basketball coach Ryan Odom. Photo by Lorene Hale.
SAN DIEGO – For quite a bit of Utah State’s 85-75 loss at San Diego State on Wednesday, it held the same feeling as the Aggies’ other double-digit road conference losses (23-point loss at Boise State and 15-point loss at Nevada). But near the end USU forced a far more interesting ending than those previous blowout losses.
Through the first seven minutes of the game Utah State went toe-to-toe with the first-place team in the Mountain West, only trailing 12-11. Then the trouble started. The Aggies missed eight straight shots over the course of five minutes and San Diego State took full advantage of this cold spell, surging ahead with an 18-0 run. That run set the tone and gave SDSU a buffer it held on to pretty much the rest of the way (with one minor exception).
“We can’t be tentative to start games against quality competition like this,” Odom said. “We were at the beginning of this game. There were some plays that happened that could hurt your confidence a little bit and I think that definitely happened. (San Diego State) were playing well and aggressive and we were kind of back on our heels.”
The combination of poor shooting (32 percent overall and 20 percent from three at halftime) and allowing a big run were major aspects to the road losses at Boise State and Nevada. Added to that was the fact that San Diego State was yet another opponent to shoot incredibly well from three. Adam Seiko – a 49 percent 3-point shooter this year — set a career-high with seven made 3-pointers, six of those coming in the first half. He didn’t miss from three until mid-way through the first half.
“We lost Seiko several times,” Odom said. “Obviously that’s not the gameplan for us, leave their best overall shooter wide-open from three. He’s going knock those down.”
“We let a shooter get really hot,” Bairstow said. “Someone coming off the bench and hitting that many shots gives an advantage that is very hard to come back from.”
Thanks in part to Seiko going 7-of-9 overall from deep, the Aztecs shot 54.5 percent from downtown. The Broncos and Wolf Pack also both shot very well from three, meaning that the trio of bad trends was continuing in Viejas Arena. But while the Boise State and Nevada games ended with slow, meaningless garbage time, the Aggies made Wednesday’s game a little more exciting and kept casual fans in their seats. Despite trailing by 20 at one point in the first half, Utah State rallied to within six points with 3:08 left in the game.
“Each one of those games have been a little bit different,” Odom said in regards to comparing USU’s three conference losses. “Nevada we’re winning the majority of the game and then suddenly it’s 64-64 and they go on a big run to separate and end the game. Boise was kind of wire-to-wire. They did a really good job from wire to wire. And we made some runs in there but they did a really good job throughout the game. This one started out similar to (the Boise State game) but our guys were able to actually get it a point where now they’re having to call a timeout and they’re having to really work through having to finish this game out.”
Small rallies here and there, powered by great performances from Taylor Funk, Sean Bairstow and Dan Akin kept USU alive until the final minute of the game when time simply ran out. Funk scored 22 points to lead the Aggies while Bairstow had 18 points, 14 of those in the second half to help get the rally going. It was Bairstow’s second-highest point total of the season and most since mid-December.
“It was more just reading the defense,” Bairstow said of how he got to his spots to score buckets. “Normally a lot of those plays are three-balls but they were pretty much running me off that line as much as possible. Saw some lanes, had to get around a big guy so he had to make a decision whether to step up with me or lay back with the big. So it was just making the right play in the paint at that moment.”
The Aggies never really gave up on this game, even when time was running out and San Diego State had regained its double-digit advantage.
“Never dropped our heads. Just kept on battling,” Bairstow said. “Just trying to get back to Aggie basketball.”
But while Odom noted his team’s efforts in getting back in, he also emphasized that “we’ve got to be in the game from the beginning.”
The loss drops Utah State back to a tie for fifth place in the Mountain West instead of the Aggies joining a four-way tie for first in the conference. The good news for the Aggies is that every team in the top five of the conference will travel to play them in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, allowing for several helpings of revenge to potentially be served.
Before those matches, thought, Utah State will have to finish its road trip. The Aggies will stay in California for the next few days, making their way up to Fresno for a matchup with Fresno State on Saturday. That game will tip off at 5 p.m.
