USU vs Hawaii

WAC play has started everyone! Crazy to think that league is already here.

The Aggies first test was against a very much improved Rainbow Warrior Hawaii Team, that was 9-3 before the game began. They had the best league record overall behind Utah State.

This was an impressive win by the Aggies, because they found a way to win. They were outstanding on the boards and at the free throw line. I truly believe that the Aggies won because of those two areas. Hawaii was shooting the lights out all night. I couldn't beleive it!

The game was only officiated by 2 refs, the third couldn't make it from Boise. Because of the 2 refs the game had some questionable calls and no-calls. It got to the point were Coach Morrill got his first Technical foul in some time called.

The reason the Aggies won last night probably had something to do with him:
Senior Forward and Preseason WAC Player of the Year, Mr. Tai Wesley. He was incredible, on fire, phenomenal and a monster. Holy Cow, I don't think I have ever seen him play the way he did. His free throw shooting was off the charts, 11-11! He has NEVER shot that many free throws and made every single one of them in my remembering. He stepped up to the line every time and drained it, with out hesitation. I will have to give him some more respect at the line, because in the past he has either been on or totally off! Tai also had the game best 13 rebounds to go along with game best 27 points (Tied for a career high, I believe set against Hawaii). Plus, he played 38 minutes! Another Career High! I was very impressed with the way he handled himself and didn't get into foul trouble which results in him on the bench. Can you imagine how many career points he could have if he played 38 minutes every game! WOW!

OK enough with the love on Tai Wesley. This Aggie team would not dote so much attention to themselves. They are always the first to congratulate their team mates. So, that being said. I have seen Pooh Williams score more points this season than I ever have. He has evolved into a more all around player. Late in the game when he went to the line to shoot free throws, I wasn't scared at all because I knew he could drain them. Tyler Newbold continues to impress me with the way he controls the ball. He had 6 assists and 0 turnovers! WOW. It is so nice to have Bendall back, he gives us a bigger body and he has a nice jumper. Brockieth kinda had me worrying awhile ago. I guess I was trying to compare him to Kris Clark and Jared Quayle to much. He is his own player, and he does things just a little bit different than those two. He is starting to get more comfortable with the way this Aggie basketball program is run.

I could go on and on about all of the Aggies, because I think they are all amazing. But I think I have rambled on to long for today's post. I haven't written this much and so I guess it was all bottled up inside! Haha.

Thanks for making it to the end, if you didn't and you just skipped to the end that is OK too :D

Score: 74-66
Record:12-2
UP NEXT: At Home vs San Jose State, Saturday.

*Note: All Aggie games can now be listened to via the internet at KVNU's website*

Gossner Classic

The Aggies hosted their annual Holiday Tournament Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. The opponents were Idaho State, Western Michigan, and Troy. To put it plainly, these teams are not very good when playing the Aggies. When they played each other, they were pretty close games, but not when they had to face the Ags. The Aggies played three solid nights of basketball. I wish I was able to to attend all the nights I had to miss the Idaho State game because I was playing that night(Logan High won). I felt that the Aggies were finally getting into a rhythm. The only time they didn't play particularly well was the first half against Western Michigan, they were the closest opponent. Everyone saw action in these games it was pretty nice, Brad Brown our last guy off the bench scored his first ever collegiate point! That is always fun to see the starters cheer their guts out for a guy like that. The star of the past three nights has to go to Brian Green, he was on FIRE. Last night in particular, he scored a career high 23 points and was named Tournament MVP. For most of last nights game against Troy, a team that played very poorly, Brian had had more points their their entire TEAM. It was pretty funny to hear the crowd chant "Brian's Winning" in the second half of the game. Utah State is very lucky to have Brian Green AND Brady Jardine coming off the bench. They half to be the best "sixth men" in the nation. They bring this energy and are great basketball players. Brady has not stopped wowing the crowd with this dunks. He had 3 killer dunks in each game. It was pretty awesome. My personal favorite was the Tomahawk dunk against Idaho State. Then there was the dunk that he got called a technical foul on and that was pretty lame, but it was pretty sweet.

So after much rambling on and on about the games, it comes down to this. The Aggies are done with the preseason, they have 3 days off for Christmas and then they start WAC play on the 29th of December when the host Hawaii. The Aggies finished the preseason with and 11-2 record with their only two losses coming from top 20 teams. Pretty amazing if you ask me.
GO AGGIES!

Up Next: December 29 at home to Hawaii
Record: 11-2

Recent Games

USU @Georgetown
Aggies second loss. They hung with them until the second quarter when they just plain out played the Ags. It also didn't help that Tai couldn't play very much. Too much foul trouble for him.

USU vs Long Beach State
Sadly I was not able to attend that game :( I had my own game I was playing that night.

USU vs Cal State Bakersfield
Strong first half and crappy second. Luckily the Aggies had a large enough lead and were able to score that the game was never in a lot of question.

USU @ UVU
Slow first half and good second half. Opposite of the last game. It was especially good to see Pane get back into the rhythm of Aggie basketball.

Record: 7-2
Up Next: Gossner Classic

USU at Denver

Well put this one in the books for one of the worst performances for Tai Wesley. I know people have off nights but his was WAY off! He kind of got plagued with silly turnovers and fouls. But I have confidence that he will be ready to play on Saturday.

The Aggies had an OK game. It defiantly was not horrible and not spectacular. I guess I am a little hard on the Ags this year because they return SO much experience. I was reminded of this when I was reading a Aggie Fan forum. The forum went crazy saying the Aggies stink and this team doesn't know how to shoot blah blah blah, and criticizing this VERY young season. Then there was this post by this fan (forum name 5thYearSenior) that really made me think "he is right, the Aggies are doing ok" So take a minute and read this post and you will understand why too:

"Seriously people, do we really have so few level heads around here to not think the sky is falling every time we don't blow a team out of the water??

So SUU and Denver played us close on the road, and Northeastern almost got us in The Spectrum. Do people forget so quickly that we nearly beat a top-25 BYU team on the road and stepped up in big way in that big game? Or that we thoroughly manhandled Utah? Or that we beat a solid Weber State team despite poor 3-point shooting??

My real point though is this...

Look at much of what went on two years ago when we won 30 games, the WAC regular season, the WAC Tournament, and nearly beat Marquette in the NCAA's...

Two-point win at UCSB, thanks to a Matt Formisano game-winner.
BARELY escaping SUU with a road win.
Idaho State hanging tough against us in Pocatello for what was only a 10-point win
Houston Baptist beating us by 8 at halftime in The Spectrum
Wyoming taking us to overtime in The Spectrum.
Fresno State hitting a 70-footer to force overtime in Fresno.


The common theme in all those games... WE WON!!! It might have been ugly, but we did, and that team won 30 games.
So far this year, we've won every game but BYU. It might have been ugly, but we won.

So calm the heck* down everyone. We will be fine. We probably won't beat Georgetown, but who REALLY expects us to? We legitimately might win every other game we play after that, and that would put is in quite a favorable spot come selection sunday.

But please, for the sake of these forums possibly ceasing to be unreadable as they've been, can we quit with the non-stop "the sky is falling" talk. It is freaking ridiculous."**

I was really impressed with this, and those are my thoughts exactly. So I am going to stick with them Ags and cheer for them WIN or LOOSE! They are a really good basketball team!

The Aggies won this game. They held the lead most of the game except for a few minutes when I think they lost focus on the goal.

We had another STRONG performance from our WAC player of the week, Brady Jardine. He is CRAZY flying everywhere and doing everything. Nate Bendall is doing better, he played 11 minutes in this game and I am grateful that he is getting more playing time.

This Aggie team is impressive and they are ready to win.

Final Score:61-53
Record:5-1
Up Next: at No.14Georgetown (7-0) on Saturday Dec. 4
*Edited
**This post can be found at http://www.usufans.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7226