LOGAN — Utah State beat Cal State-Bakersfield 78-57 on the scoreboard, enjoyed a dominating 40-21 advantage in rebounds and shot a robust 51.9 percent from the floor.
Yet coach Stew Morrill couldn't quite find a way to get excited about Wednesday night's win.
"It just had a different feel to it," Morrill said after the Aggies improved to 25-2 with the nonconference win over the Roadrunners. "This one was just a little different."
The game ended the way most expected it to. The No. 23-ranked Aggies weren't seriously challenged, were able to empty the bench and give most starters some valuable time resting on the sidelines. Nine USU players scored at least seven points and no one played more than 28 minutes.
But Morrill wasn't entirely impressed with his team's 32nd consecutive home win.
"If you look at the stat sheet you would say we played pretty well," Morrill said. "I'm not sure we played all that well. But we did what we needed to do."
Still, the Aggies — who had a 19-game win streak snapped a few days ago at Boise State — picked up another win and under the circumstances, that was good enough.
"After a loss," USU guard Pooh Williams said, "we just really wanted to bounce back. We felt like we had a lot to prove."
Whether or not the 21-point win proves anything is one thing, getting prepared for Saturday afternoon's big ESPN BracketBuster game at St. Mary's is another.
And Morrill said he's hoping his team can quickly begin setting up a game plan for the 20-5 Gaels.
"To be honest, we're not going to dissect this game," Morrill said. "We're going to dissect St. Mary's."
Wednesday night, though, was a chance for the Aggies to pick up another win and try to get certain players a few valuable minutes of playing times while the starters took a relative breather.
Tai Wesley, who scored 11 points, was the team leader in minutes played with 28. Stavon Williams came off the bench to lead the team in scoring with 13 points and played 27 minutes. Matt Formisano logged 18 minutes and scored seven points while grabbing five rebounds.
But despite the final margin of victory, the game was closer in many ways than most might think.
CSUB (6-20) battled toe-to-toe with the heavily-favored Aggies for the first 14 minutes of the game and even held a 26-25 lead with 6:19 to play in the first half.
"I didn't think we came out as well as we would have liked," Morrill said. "But give them credit, they were 5-for-5 from 3."
The Roadrunners, though, were never really in the game again after that.
Utah State scored the final 16 points of the first half — 11 of them coming from Stavon Williams on a trio of 3-pointers and a 17-foot jumper — to blow the game open.
"It was a game of little spurts," Morrill said.
It was also a game of concern after Aggie big man Gary Wilkinson spent much of the game hobbling around and grimacing in obvious pain from a lower-back injury. After the game he said he'd be fine, but he gave many of the 8,189 fans at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum more of a scare than the Roadrunners did.
USU pushed its lead to as many as 23 points at 67-44 in the second half before Bakersfield went on a 10-0 run to bring the score back to 69-57 with 4:26 to play on a Donald Lee bucket in the paint.
That was the last time CSUB scored, though, as Brady Jardine grabbed an offensive rebound for a powerful dunk and helped Utah State close the game with a 9-0 run capped by a Wilkinson 3-pointer with 1:28 to play.
The two big defensive shutdowns, especially, gave Morrill something to be pleased with as did the 22 assists and rebounding edge.
Efforts like those, he said, will be sorely needed on Saturday afternoon.
E-mail: jeborn@desnews.com