USU - Hawai'i - Men's Basketball - Game 17

Postgame Wrap-Up

Stew Postgame

Tai Postgame

Newbold Postgame

Redemption

That word of comfort, joy, reconciliation and conclusion appeared to be the theme for the beleaguered Aggie Ball club heading into Monday's matchup between Hawai'i and Utah State. The Aggies came into the game having dropped the last two games, the team's WAC opening games, on the road. The first loss was a close one to NMSU, but the second was not nearly as close. Louisiana Tech put on the chokehold and didn't let up the entire evening, pummeling USU into a 23-point hole from which the visitors never escaped.

That having been said, however, USU has overall fared well to this point in the season. USU finished the preseason dropping only four games, and closely contested ones at that. With 15 regular-season games remaining, the future remains in the hands of our boys in blue and white, and that future looks bright after the beatdown that USU put down on the Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors in the Spectrum

Redemption.

Utah State had this season's most spectacular half of basketball they've played so far this season. USU shot 73.1 percent from the field over the half. Yes, 73.1 percent. The Aggies hit 19 of their 26 shots and completely put the beatdown on the visiting team. Seven of those makes were from 3-point land, the most spectacular of which was Jared Quayle's NBA distance buzzer-beater over the 6'10" Xi Jiang. Oh yeah, USU only took 8 shots from downtown as well. What was different in this game from the last ones?

First, the opponent. Hawai'i is good, but they aren't spectacular. They've won their fair share of games, but all have come against no-name teams. Hawai'i lost to BYU by a bunch, UNLV by a bunch, Idaho by seven, St. Mary's by nine, among others. Hawai'i is a mediocre team with a mediocre coach playing, well, mediocre...

Second, swagger. The Ags had it all night long. A great man once said, "A man should walk through life like a pilot through a cockpit: cool, calm and checkin' out the sexy stews!" If Tai Wesley lost his confidence at all on this most recent road trip, he certainly got it back. He was cracking jokes with the press and checking out a pair of good-lookin' cheerleaders in the hall during media interview times. Yeah, that's right Tai. I saw that. For the good of the team, I certainly hope Tai remains that way.

And finally, offensive execution was off the charts in this game. Truly rare is a 90-point performance from a college team in 40 minutes, but this game had every possibility to break 100. Combine Newbold's 5-5 night from the 3-point line with Brian Green's 3-3 night, and there's 24 points. BAM!

Sure Stew could have left in starters to run up the score, but Stew is compassionate - listen to his postgame interview and reasoning behind not trying to run up the score. Still, I only wish that USU had been able to grab that last rebound and score those last two points to hit the century mark. That would have been sweet.

So, is this USU team fixed? No. They dominate at home, but need to bottle the swagger and take it with them on the road. USU ran the floor really very well in this game, and that's the main reason why the Ags ran up such a high score. They need to do that as well on the road. Hawai'i had loads of turnovers in a very sloppy performance. Nevada won't play so poorly. And of course, USU needs to hit shots when the shot is there. The Aggies need to execute offensively and not be discouraged by the fact that the HURD is watching the game on the tube instead of in the seats.

In a final note, scientists discovered that rather than a pot of gold lying at the end of the rainbow, there's only a crappy basketball team. Tragic...

All-in-all, nice win Aggies. Kill 'em on Wednesday in Reno.