The last time Utah State had an eight-game basketball winning streak was 1979-80, and it included victories at UC-Santa Barbara and at Long Beach State.
The Aggies (9-3, 3-0 in the Big West) will have to get past Santa Barbara (8-4, 2-2) tonight at 8:30 MST in the Thunderdome to make their eighth win on their current streak, now at a lucky 7.And if the Aggies should be so fortunate as to put up No. 8, Long Beach State's University Gym is their next venue on Saturday night.
Both Aggie opponents were picked to finish in the league's top four but are 2-2 and on two-game losing streaks, each coming off the tough New Mexico State/UNLV road swing last weekend.
"Santa Barbara is the hardest place in America to play," says Aggie senior Kendall Youngblood of the Thunderdome, completed in 1979 as the Campus Events Center but renamed in 1986 after three years of Jerry Pimm success there.
The Gauchos are 61-15 at home over the last 51/2 seasons, 7-1 this season with the only loss to Ohio State on national TV.
The game should feature two of the quicker point guards in the league, USU's Malloy Nesmith and UCSB's Ray Kelly, who leads the Big West in steals with 2.3 a game. Nesmith and Kelly are virtually tied in assists, Nesmith at 5.1 a game and Kelly at 5.0, third and fourth in the league. Nesmith has a 10-assist game; Kelly has had three eight-assist games and three five-steal games.
The other Gauchos to stop are 6-foot-8 forward Lucius Davis, No. 2 in the league at 19.8 points a game and No. 9 in rebounds at 6.4; and 6-3 guard Idris Jones, shooting 51 percent from the field and 42 percent on 3-pointers. He made six 3-pointers at UNLV last weekend.
The Aggies, having played the 10 p.m. Monday game and having left for UCSB Wednesday, had little time to prepare for UCSB, but coach Kohn Smith figures the experience against Rutgers Monday should have helped because the Scarlet Knights were an all-out pressing team that used a variety of press defenses. USU had little trouble moving the ball on those presses, and that's been one of Smith's major concerns the past few weeks, particularly because of this two-game swing to Santa Barbara and Long Beach.