BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — If Friday’s NCAA Tournament game marks the final time that Neemias Queta suits up in a Utah State uniform, the 7-footer from Portugal certainly gave it his all.
The junior center played all but 17 seconds of the 65-53 loss loss to Texas Tech, coming in and out of the game for brief stints in the final minute. Officially, it goes down as a career-high 40 minutes played for Queta, who absolutely filled up the stat line with 11 points and a team-high 13 rebounds, seven blocks and six assists. He went 5 for 8 from the floor and 1 for 2 from free-throw line while recording his 16th double-double of the season.
That left Queta as just the second player in an NCAA Tournament game since blocks became an official stat during the 1985-86 season to record 10-plus points, 10-plus rebounds and five or more assists and blocks. Baylor’s Elle Udoh totaled 18 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and five blocks in a loss to Duke in 2010.
“Yeah, I can’t tell you how good he is. My friends in pro basketball always ask me in the spring, ‘Who did you see this year?’ This guy will be at the top of the list. Again today, double-double and six assists. He’s a triple-double guy. I think the best thing we did today was probably limiting some of his shot attempts.” — Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard, on Neemias Queta
“Yeah, I can’t tell you how good he is,” Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard said of Queta. “My friends in pro basketball always ask me in the spring, ‘Who did you see this year?’ This guy will be at the top of the list. Again today, double-double and six assists. He’s a triple-double guy. I think the best thing we did today was probably limiting some of his shot attempts.
“Defense for us wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s try to figure out how to make him go 4 for 15.’ That wasn’t the deal. It was, ‘Hey, man, we’d better not let him get 15 shots.’ Today he gets eight shots if I’m accurate, and that was probably the best thing we did because when he gets the ball something good is going to happen for Utah State. It’s going to be a bucket, it’s going to be a foul drawn or it’s going to be an assist. He is the best big-man passer that I saw this year in college basketball.”
Queta flirted with making himself eligible for the NBA draft after a spectacular freshman season, but ended up staying at Utah State. A knee injury the summer before his sophomore year led to a challenging season last year, but Queta has put together the kind of season this year that could certainly make him a first-round draft pick in the next NBA draft.
Noting “that dude gets beat up” playing in the post, Utah State coach Craig Smith certainly appreciates what Queta has given the Aggies during the 2020-21 season.
“Neemi is a phenomenal player, a tremendous person,” Smith said. “Not many centers you roll out there for 39 minutes, and that’s not necessarily fair to him, but he’s earned that. He’s just playing at such an elite level. He ends the game with 11 points, 13 boards, six assists and seven blocked shots, and not many guys in the world, college basketball, NBA, pro basketball, in the world can do something like that.
“We lean on him heavy. He’s a star player, and your star players have to deliver when the pressure is on, and he did. And he’s done that all year.“
When asked after Friday’s game about his future, Queta was understandably not ready to make an announcement one way or the other.
“I really don’t know; I couldn’t tell you,” Queta said. “We just lost a tournament game, and this is all we wanted to do. You never know when you’ll get a chance to come back to it.”
TOURNEY TROUBLES: Despite all of its success on the basketball court the past couple of decades, Utah State has not won a game in the NCAA Tournament since upsetting fifth-seeded Ohio State 77-68 in overtime as a No. 12 seed in 2001. The Aggies have gone 0-7 in first-round games since Stew Morrill guided USU to that victory over the Buckeyes 20 years ago, and Utah State is now 6-24 all-time in the Big Dance.
Of course, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic denied the Aggies a shot at ending their losing streak last March and they ended the season with a 26-8 record.
BOARDED UP: Utah State outrebounded Texas Tech by a 38-28 margin on Friday, which means the Aggies ended up winning the battle of the boards in all 29 of their games this season.
Coming into the NCAA Tournament, Utah State was second in the country with a rebound margin of 10.6, and the Aggies have now only been outrebounded nine times in Smith’s 98 games as head coach.
SOCIAL DISTANCING: While most other venues in this year’s pandemic-altered NCAA Tournament were allowed 25% of capacity, Indiana University capped attendance for Friday’s game at just 500 people. Those fans then had to exit Assembly Hall so the building could be cleaned before the next contest.
The majority of the people on hand for the USU-Texas Tech were relatives of the coaches and players involved. However, Utah State University President Noelle Cockett and her husband, John, were in the stands, as well as some familiar faces wearing red and black instead of Aggie blue.
Former Aggie quarterback and head and assistant coach Matt Wells was at Assembly Hall, along with his wife, Jen, and their three children. Wells spent time at halftime re-connecting with many old friends and colleagues, including Cockett, who was president when Wells was lured away by the Red Raiders three years ago by a six-year, $18.8 million contract.