Utah State's basketball team stands 7-1 this season, 1-0 in Big West Conference play and with a 28-game home-win streak that is third-longest in the country. Pacific is 7-2, 1-0 in the conference. It's won four straight games and four road games already, and it's itching for revenge.
This intense rivalry that renews tonight at 7 in USU's Smith Spectrum has escalated each year since Larry Eustachy started as Utah State coach in the 1993-94 season. His first team broke a four-game losing streak to Bob Thomason's Pacific, then took the Tigers to overtime in a loss at Stockton, Calif.
The next year, USU won 58-57 in Stockton and by 10 in Logan, and in 1995-96, the Ags won by two in double overtime at home but lost badly at Pacific.
The next year they split the regular season, and each won its division of the Big West Conference. But the Aggies, 24-7 at the time with Marcus Saxon, Kevin Rice and crew, shocked the high-flying Tigers, then 23-8 with eventual NBA Draft No. 1 choice Michael Olowokandi, 78-63 in the Big West Tournament championship game. The Ags went to the NCAA tourney, and Pacific was stuck in the NIT.
In came Stew Morrill and his coaching staff. They played Pacific just once in 1998-99, losing by 11 in Stockton. But the Aggies have won the five games since then, including a dominating 50-38 win in the conference tournament championship game, in which Pacific scored just 15 points in the first half.
Even before the tournament last season, Thomason complained about Aggie Brennan Ray's physical style, and USU took great offense, upping the ante again.
Utah State's many new players are already well indoctrinated about this game that will be brutally physical and coached by two of the Big West's best minds.
Aggie senior Tony Brown told his younger teammates that this one will be twice as rough as Thursday's win over Cal Northridge, which saw several cheap shots and hard fouls. "They really want to beat us bad. We've had luck the last few years," Brown said.
USU senior center Jeremy Vague had his first experiences with UOP last season, and these are his kind of games. "I love them. I can't wait. I'm hungry. I want to get them real bad. It's just the way they play, and last year, all the trash talk; the words kind of built it up. It's definitely a huge game."
The Tigers are stocked with eight seniors and six players 6-foot-7 or taller and got a real shot in the arm with newcomer Demetrious Jackson, a junior-college transfer guard who scores 16.2 a game. Morrill equates Thomason's strategies to those of Rick Majerus at Utah and expects to see a variety of junk defenses — box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos, zones and soft presses, along with beefy play inside and good shooting outside.
Following this two-game Big West weekend, USU hosts its Gossner Classic next weekend before hitting the Big West road the first week of January.
E-mail: lham@desnews.com