Getting a victory, especially the 100th of your coaching career, can bring some smiles. Larry Eustachy is still getting a chuckle out of an unexpected beginning to Monday night's win in the Logan Spectrum against Chaminade.

With the Aggies and Silverswords out on the court for pregame warmups, Eustachy was in the squad room up the tunnel thinking about coachly things.He asked first-year assistant coach Leonard Perry - a former Eustachy player and student assistant and, last year, a student assistant to Joe Cravens at Idaho - to go out on the floor to get him the starting lineup.

Eustachy wanted to know which players Chaminade would start.

Suddenly Eustachy looked up to see that Perry had brought him the starting lineup - Eric Franson, Silas Mills, Jon Wickizer, Justin Jones and Duane Rogers. Off the floor. Up the tunnel.

For a second it worried Eustachy to see his players standing there; he thought something might have happened to one of them until he remembered asking for the starting lineup.

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DESERVED: The Ags deserve a laugh now and then after a tough early season. They're taking a few days off but will be back at practice Christmas night with lots to work on. One troubling statistic despite an encouraging couple of outings is their back-to-back 16-turnover games against Weber and Chaminade.

TOP OF THE CHARTS: Utah State has played more games (nine) than anybody else in the Big West Conference. Four conference members have winning preseason records: Pacific (4-1), Nevada (5-2), Irvine (3-2) and Long Beach (4-3), with Pacific, Long Beach and Nevada winning Tuesday night. USU is 4-5.

As of Tuesday morning, USU leads the league in field goal percentage (.468), rebound margin (11.7) and opponent rebounds (27.0) and is last in turnover margin (-4.9).

Mills remains the Big West's leading scorer averaging 21.3 points a game, with Franson ranking fifth at 17.9. Mills is second (.608) and Franson fourth (.569) in field goal percentage. Franson's fourth (8.4) and Mills fifth (7.9) in rebound average, and Mills is ninth in blocks per game (0.9). Rogers is third in assists averaging 5.1.

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