Purple Party Crashers: Second-half surge propels Weber State in upset of undefeated Utah State, 75-72

Utah State men’s basketball had a peak opportunity to make history with the school’s first-ever 10-0 start in front of a nearly sold-out Dee Glen Smith Spectrum against a much smaller and assumably weaker opponent.

Enter the world-wrecking Weber State Wildcats.

The Wildcats caught fire offensively in the second half of a wild game in Logan and handed the Aggies their first loss of the season in a 75-72 shocker on Monday night.

After shooting 56% in the first half and leading by as much as 18 points, Utah State’s fiery offense went ice cold in the second half, shooting 30.8% over the final 20 minutes. Weber State outscored the Aggies 24-6 over the first 10 minutes of the second half.

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“Their players were very competitive in that second half right away,” Utah State head coach Ryan Odom said. “They got back in the game pretty quickly.”

The Aggies have weathered the storm of opposing players having individual big games multiple times already this season, but Weber State’s five players scoring in double figures proved the ultimate downfall of Utah State in front of a crowd of 7,000 fans. Wildcats sophomore guard Dillon Jones led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds, but Weber State also got 14 points from senior guard Junior Ballard, 12 from sophomore forward Dyson Koehler, 11 from junior guard KJ Cunningham and 10 from junior guard Steven Verplancken.

“(Dillon) Jones is a dynamite player … but they all played well,” Odom said. “They made plays they needed to make in order to win the game.”

Most situational statistics showed the teams pretty evenly matched. Utah State outscored the Wildcats 9-2 off turnovers, but Weber State outscored the Aggies 9-2 on second-chance points. They tied 7-7 on fast breaks and were within a few possessions of each other on bench points and points in the paint.

The simple difference between the winning and losing team was that when it mattered most, the Wildcats hit clutch shot after clutch shot, while the Aggies’ offense saw several wide-open opportunities thunk off the rim.

One of the more telling stats of Utah State’s dismal performance was its 14 total assists, considerably below the 20 assists per game they entered the matchup with, ranked fifth in the nation.

Utah State saw the return of senior point guard Rylan Jones after he missed the last three games due to a concussion sustained in the first few minutes against Utah Tech on Dec. 1. Jones played 22 minutes and scored 6 points, and he came up with several defensive stops in an effort to halt the Wildcats’ momentum down the stretch.

“It’s a crappy feeling,” Jones said. “We’re going to think about this one a lot tonight and the things that we fell short on in the second half, but tomorrow is a new day and we’re going to come back with a better focus, more discipline and ready to take on tomorrow. Obviously, tonight’s going to hurt and we’re all going to think about it tonight, but when it comes to tomorrow, we’ve got to come back to practice and be more disciplined and ready to go.”

Junior guard Steven Ashworth led the Aggies in scoring with 16 points. Like he has before several times this season, he caught fire in the latter part of the game with back-to-back 3-pointers when the Aggies were down a possession, but Weber State matched it tit-for-tat with back-to-back 3s on the other end, stifling Utah State’s best chance at late-game momentum.

“I think we got the pace of the game to where we needed it,” Weber State head coach Eric Duft said. “You just can’t come in here and run up and down. We played it kind of on our terms in the second half and they played it on their terms in the first half. It worked out well for us. Proud of our guys and their ability to stay with it.”

Utah State had a lot of emotion showing in the first half in what looked at the time like a blowout in progress for the Aggies. That confidence careened downward when the Wildcats stormed back. Odom touched on the fact after the game that despite the humbling defeat, they are still 9-1.

“Obviously, our guys are kicking themselves, but we understand that we’ve gotten a third of the way through the season at this point and the guys are off to a good start,” Odom said. “That’s just what it is, though, is a start to the season. We realize we have to play better. We didn’t play one half, and it’s a tale of two halves. It takes two halves to win a basketball game and we did not play two halves in this particular one.”

The Aggies have very little time to rest before heading on a plane to Hawaii tomorrow. They’ll open up the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Dec. 22 against Seattle. The Redhawks are near the top 100 in NET rankings as of Monday night.