LOGAN — Sometimes looks can be very deceiving.
After four days off for the Christmas break, the Utah State Aggies looked rusty, and they even spoke of it after their 65-49 victory over Cal State Bakersfield Saturday night. But in reality, the Aggies played as well as they have all season.
The Aggies (10-3) allowed 49 points (second-lowest for an opponent this year) while holding the Roadrunners to just 31.3 percent shooting from the field, the lowest for an Aggie opponent all season.
Offensively, the Aggies shot 52.1 percent from the field, which was the first time they shot over 50 percent in five games.
"What's wrong? Nothing's wrong," said Utah State coach Stew Morrill, who picked up his 200th win with the Aggies. "We won by 16. It's a good win. We're glad to have it."
In his ninth season, Morrill is now 26 games shy of passing legendary coach E. Lowell Romney for the most wins of all time at Utah State.
Stephen DuCharme paced the Aggies with 13 points, while Jaycee Carroll added 11 and Chris Session added 10 as the Aggies won their 43rd straight regular season nonconference home game, the second-longest active streak in the nation.
"When you come back from Christmas break, you don't expect to play perfect basketball. After getting some time off and practicing twice, you always need some time to get the feel back," Utah State guard Durrall Peterson said. "Tonight was a good win. We held a team to under 50 points. I think that's pretty good."
The Aggies now open Western Athletic Conference play Thursday at Boise State.
For the first seven minutes, the Aggies had trouble shaking the Division II Roadrunners. At the 13:33 mark, Bakersfield led by one at 13-12, but the Aggies went on a 9-0 run to lead 21-13 with 7:08 to play.
The Roadrunners shot just 27.6 percent from the field in the first half and turned the ball over six times. Utah State, however, led by only six at the break, 29-23.
With the Utah State lead at nine with 17:55 left in the game, the Aggies forced eight Roadrunner turnovers in their next 10 possessions to build the lead to 10.
In that stretch, the Roadrunners (4-6) scored just two points.
Leading by 11 with 8:24 left, the Aggies held the Roadrunners to just two points over the next five minutes while increasing their lead to 20.
In all, the Aggies forced 19 Bakersfield turnovers, which tied a season-high for an opponent.
"I thought we did a pretty good job defensively," Morrill said.
"We had some turnovers from players that are mature enough and have enough experience, and they were the type of turnovers that were just not characteristic," Bakersfield coach Keith Brown said.
"They (the Aggies) were aggressive and took it at us."
O.J. Harrison came off the bench and scored a season-high five points for the Aggies, while Kris Clark added a season-high nine.
E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com