Aggies fall flat in second half, lose to New Mexico in battle for first place | Sports



LOGAN – Spectrum Magic night didn’t quite produce the spell needed to lift Utah State to victory in a first-place clash against New Mexico. The Aggies yielded a nine-point second-half lead and eventually fell 82-63 to the Lobos who claim full possession of first place in the Mountain West standings.

After a five-game stretch in which Utah State shot 46.6 percent on 3-pointers, those same shots simply weren’t falling for the Aggies. They went 5 of 31 on the night (16.1 percent), the worst 3-point shooting night for Utah State at home since 2020. Free throws also plagued the team with a 43.5 percent rate on freebies which is also a season-worst.

The free throw woes were perhaps somewhat predictable, given the Aggies had shot 60.4 percent over their last six games (though Ian Martinez going 2 for 7 at the line after being a 90 percent free throw shooter as of last week was odd). The 3-point shooting was quite the mystery.

“A lot of those are good looks,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “So I feel bad for guys in a little bit of a way because they were they were wide open. It wasn’t like we didn’t get good shots.”

“We missed shots today. We had a great game plan I think on defense,” senior point guard Drake Allen said. “We could have picked up energy a little more, and if we make shots that game changes, maybe the outcomes a little bit different.”

With 15 minutes left in the game, though, most of those things didn’t matter. The Aggies were shooting horribly beyond the arc and at the line, but led 48-39. Drake Allen got the crowd riled up with a steal and a dunk to put USU up by those nine points.

It was from that point that the poor performance truly caught up with Utah State.

New Mexico went right back down the court after Allen’s dunk and got one of its own, Nelly Joseph throwing on down over the Aggie defense. That kicked off a 10-0 run that erased the deficit in less than two minutes. The two sides battled back and forth over the lead for another couple of minutes but the Lobos struck what became a death blow soon after — an 11-1 run that helped hand them a double-digit advantage.

Over the final quarter hour of game time, the Aggies were outscored 43-15.

“Forget the 19-point loss. It is what it is. There’s a ton more games. It’s the resolve and the toughness in the second half at home that really stings,” Calhoun said. “And if you look at the stat sheet, you look at plus 15 for (New Mexico) on the glass, that tells the tale of the game. We have to be tougher.”

Numerous factors played into Utah State flatlining for nearly the entire second half. For one, well…shooting, except we’ve been over that, but for two, the stars that fueled the 19-2 start to the season, Ian Martinez and Mason Falslev, combined to shoot 6 of 20 and had just 14 points between them.

“Our best player’s got to play better. I mean, you can’t go 4 of 12 and 2 of 8,” Calhoun said. “It was a rough night, and they’ve really struggled the last two weeks. Stew Morrill’s message before UNLV, thought was spot-on. Players win the games in February. Your players have got to step up and lead in the tough times during the game, make plays. And I have a lot of confidence those kids will do it. They’ll bounce back.”

Next, a stellar first-half performance against New Mexico’s star duo, Donovan Dent and Nelly Joseph, fell apart in the latter part of the game. Dent was 1 of 5 from the floor to start the game with just six points at the break with Joseph being a virtual non-factor. He scored just two points and was mostly relegated to grabbing defensive rebounds (he also picked up a second foul in the middle of the half and took an extended seat on the bench.

Once the pair of Lobos stars came out of the locker room, things quickly changed. Dent scored eight second-half points plus four assists to finish with 14 and six, while Joseph poured in 13, ending the night with a double-double of 15 points, 13 rebounds.

And, finally, a pair of injuries burdened Utah State. Starting forward Tucker Anderson went down with an ankle injury in the first half after challenging for a rebound. He didn’t return and played just four minutes all night. Dexter Akanno, who had 10 points at halftime and two of USU’s 3-pointers, left the game in the second half with cramps in his left leg.

While both injuries led to the night being over for the respective players, Calhoun seemed hopeful both will be able to bounce back in the short term, though he couldn’t offer anything definitive in the postgame press conference.

For all these issues from the Aggies, the Lobos clearly deserved a lot of credit for the performance. They earned the right to become the lone first-place team in the Mountain West. A team performance on both ends helped them turn around some of their own offensive woes (shooting 39.3 percent at halftime) and score 52 points in the second half. The defense also took full advantage of USU’s woeful shooting and made scoring inside the paint a near-impossibility.

As Calhoun said, the loss is what it is at this point. It’s something to dwell on tonight, but the players will resolve to get better starting tomorrow.

“I think that we need to let it sting for a little bit. When you lose games like that, it hurts really bad. I think all the guys are feeling it right now. We’re not proud of the way we played with not only just not making shots, we’re not proud of the energy we had. We should have gave it a little bit more,” Allen said. “We’re gonna use it as motivation to bounce back.”

“You’re you’re never as good as you think you are, you’re never as bad,” Calhoun said. “We got beat (by 19 points). We’re up six at halftime. You know, things can change really, really fast in a season. That’s why you can’t get up too high. You can’t get too low, especially with this generation. I mean, you got to be very, very careful, right? So we got to bounce back tomorrow.”

Utah State won’t have a whole lot of time to do all of that work, though. Next up will be a two-game road trip at Wyoming and Fresno State with the first leg on Tuesday in Laramie. Both teams are in the bottom third of the conference, but they’re two teams the Aggies struggled against. They defeated the Cowboys by just three points at home and trailed the Bulldogs by 17 before rallying to win that contest by six points.



Source link

Share This Article

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email

Comments

Related Articles