Sam Merrill’s star, and big shot, shined the brightest, but teamwork pushed USU into NCAAs for second-straight year

LAS VEGAS — Sam Merrill’s memorable shot at the Thomas & Mack, and Malachi Flynn’s half-court miss by a matter of inches, dominated college basketball highlight shows Saturday night and well into Sunday even as the Utah State Aggies returned to Logan as Mountain West Conference Tournament champions for the second-straight year.

Merrill’s heroics were the talk of the state, and the country, after the 59-56 win that sends the Aggies into the NCAA Tournament hungry to make amends for last year’s early exit at the hands of Washington. Utah State (26-8) will get to savor the victory over the haughty Aztecs (30-2) until next Sunday’s Selection Show, as the MW Tournament was moved up a week to accommodate a construction convention in Las Vegas that will suck up a good portion of the hotel rooms this week.

Even Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz acknowledged Merrill’s big shot on Twitter, calling it “Tough!”

And why not? The Utah State senior has scored 20 or more points in six straight conference tournament wins, the first player in more than 20 years to accomplish that feat.

But as they spoke with reporters in what had to be one of the lengthiest postgame news conferences in recorded history, Merrill and USU coach Craig Smith insisted the Aggies (26-8) are far from a one-man show.

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“I hope there’s a few more (iconic shots),” Merrill told the Deseret News in response to a question about how the one over hard-nosed SDSU defender KJ Feagin will be remembered in USU basketball lore. “I hope there’s a few more games to be played and a few more big shots to be hit. But basketball is absolutely a team game, and like coach said, he talked about everyone that played well and everyone that stepped up, and we wouldn’t have been in that position without those guys and without doing it together as a team.”

That togetherness kept the season from disintegrating in December when the Aggies lost to BYU for the eighth-straight time, 68-64 in December at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. It steadied the ship after they lost three straight games in early January to UNLV, SDSU (in Logan) and Air Force.

“This one is even sweeter than last year’s, because we had a lot more ups and downs — a lot more downs than last year. We just stuck together and found a way to overcome everything that came at us.” — USU center Neemias Queta

It steeled their resolve when they blew big second-half leads against Boise State and New Mexico.

“This one is even sweeter than last year’s, because we had a lot more ups and downs — a lot more downs than last year,” said star center Neemias Queta, who joined Merrill on the all-tournament team. “We just stuck together and found a way to overcome everything that came at us. Coach Smith just always told us to like stay together and just always try to think of the next play and keep staying together.”

Merrill said last year’s experience in the Big Dance — a 78-61 loss to the Huskies in Columbus, Ohio — will serve the Aggies well this year. Their seeding will largely depend on what happens in other conference tournaments this week, but most bracketologists have them as a 10 or 11 seed.

Joe Lunardi of ESPN had them as an 11 seed playing 6 seed Michigan in Albany, New York, in his projections Sunday.

San Diego State “will win a couple (NCAA) games for sure, but for us, that loss last year was a really tough way to go out, losing in the first round. We are going to have (experience) this year,” Merrill said. “Luckily we can just not worry about everything that was new last year with all the media and all that stuff that goes on, and we can just focus on just trying to win our first one and then hopefully go from there.”

One of the priorities this week will be to get the players some rest, Smith said, especially point guard Abel Porter, who is nursing a sore back and other ailments that limited his playing time in the tournament.

“This year feels sweeter than last year,” Merrill said. “Last year it just feels like every went perfectly. We had no injuries. We obviously lost a couple games. But this year we had to go through some stuff. Neemy (Queta) missed a ton of games, and some other undisclosed injuries slowed us down a little bit, and we lost a couple games that we really had no business losing.”

But in the conference tournament, Merrill made some shots that some might say he had no business making, and the Aggies are again going dancing — with one of the country’s brightest stars.