LOGAN — The Pacific Tigers just don't know when to shut up.
For the past six years, Big West Conference meetings between the Utah State and Pacific haven't lacked for energy, but the Tigers only added fuel to the fire before Saturday's conference meeting with the two-time defending league champion Aggies.
"I wanted to shut those guys up," Utah State forward Desmond Penigar said. "They were talking trash at the beginning of the game. They were saying me and Tony (Brown) weren't going to score. That's foolish."
Penigar and Brown delivered.
Penigar scored a game-high 26 points on 8 of 10 shooting and Brown added 20 on 8 of 13 shooting in the 81-71 conference victory over the Tigers.
The Aggies, for that matter, delivered by shooting a season-high 62 percent from the field and 46 percent from the 3-point line. As of Dec. 17, the Aggies led the nation at 52.9 percent.
"It looked like a second night of a conference swing as far as energy level," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "Maybe that's part of the reason we were relaxed and shot the ball so well."
With the victory, the Aggies (8-1, 2-0) have won six straight and eight of their last nine against the Tigers, and run their home winning streak to 29 games — third best in the country.
"That's a 7-2 team coming in off some good wins," Morrill said. "We're going to feel good about that one."
With the loss, the Tigers fall to 7-3 overall and 1-1 in league play.
Now the Aggies lead the series 40-17 and are 26-1 against Pacific at the Smith Spectrum.
"They have a very good team and played really well tonight," Pacific coach Bob Thomason said. "Any time you have a team that plays well on their home court, they are probably going to win."
Penigar was 6 of 6 shooting in the first half en route to 14 halftime points, while Brown hit 5 of 6 shots in the second half for 13 of his 20.
"We're playing great team ball," Penigar said. "At the beginning of the game I was on fire and they hit me up. Tony, in the second half, was on fire and they passed him the ball. Everybody did the little things and contributed to the team."
Point guard Ronnie Ross, who was in foul trouble most of the game, led the Aggies with four assists and Brown had three.
"Their philosophy was to just take Tony out and he made some awfully good basketball plays," Morrill said of the senior. "He gets the ball and takes it by guys, lifts guys and steps through guys. He's an old church-league, city-league type player. You've got to love it."
The Aggies never trailed in Saturday's 10-point victory. Less than four minutes into the game they led 12-2. Pacific slowly chipped away at the Aggie lead and cut it to one at 25-24 with 6:06 left in the first half. Brown nailed a 3-pointer to start the Aggies on a 12-4 run to end the half to lead 37-28.
Brown bumped the lead to 12 with a bucket with 16:47 left, and Chad Evans hit a jumper with 10:47 left to give the Aggies their biggest lead of the game at 14.
The Tigers managed to pull within five with less than two minutes left in the game, but they wouldn't score again.
"We had times in the second half when we did not execute," Thomason said. "We just have to go back to practice and try and get better."
Mike Preston led Pacific with 18 points and Maurice McLemore had 17, while Ross scored 10 for the Aggies.
"We made it interesting and exciting down there at the end when we really didn't need to," Morrill said. "Nevertheless, we did a lot of things well."
The Aggies jump back into action next Friday when they host Centenary in the first round of the Gossner Foods Classic. Birmingham Southern and Idaho State are the two other invitees.
E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com