The Utah State Aggies cruised to their eighth straight win and moved to 6-0 in Mountain West Conference play with an 82-46 thrashing of the New Mexico Lobos in Lubbock, Texas, on Friday night.
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Here are three takeaways from the contest.
- Unlike on Wednesday when it took the Aggies a little while before they pulled ahead of the Lobos en route to a 32-point win, they jumped out to an early lead on Friday and didn’t look back. Utah State scored the first bucket of the night on a 3-pointer from Justin Bean and led 16-2 less than six minutes into the game. The lead ballooned to 20 with 4:27 to go in the first half and got up to 27 right before halftime. With the lead 27 inside of two minutes to play, the Aggies scored the final nine points of the night to put an exclamation point on it.
- At halftime, Utah State was shooting 57% from the field and New Mexico was just 24%. The Aggies also had big advantages in rebounds (+14) and assists (+9). For the night, Utah State shot 51% to 31% for the Lobos. The Aggies finished a ridiculous +31 on the boards (53-22) and +12 in assists (20-8). Utah State also made eight more free throws (11-3).
- Marco Anthony scored nine of Utah State’s first 16 points as the Aggies broke things open early. He scored just three points the rest of the way to finish with 12, but the Aggies had great balance. Bean led the way with 13, then after Anthony, Neemias Queta scored 11 and Steven Ashworth 10. In all, 11 of the 12 Utah State players who saw the floor scored. Makuach Maluach led New Mexico with 13 points and was the only Lobo to finish in double figures.