Ags know playing at Y. tough

LOGAN — It's rare when Utah State plays a basketball game on the road where the opposition's fans have the same type of intensity as Aggie fans in the Smith Spectrum.

The Aggies, who are 88-8 at home over the past six seasons, travel to BYU, which is 58-2 in the last three-plus seasons. Utah State hasn't won in Provo since 1985.

"A lot of the guys on the team weren't even born, and that was my first year in college," Spencer Nelson joked.

Nelson actually began his career in 1998-99, served an LDS mission and redshirted due to a knee injury.

"It's a tough place to play," Nelson said. "I've never won down there, and I've played there twice. They've got good fans and they always have good teams. We're definitely going to have to play Aggie basketball in order to have a chance to win."

The Aggies have lost 14 straight games in Provo, including a 64-61 loss in 1996-97 — BYU's only win that year.

"Naturally, when you go to Provo there are concerns on how good they are in that building, year in and year out," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said.

The Cougars (2-6) had their streak of 18 straight and streak of 40 wins against non-conference opponents snapped with a loss to California earlier in the year.

The Aggies will be playing their fourth in-state opponent in five games, and with a win over the Cougars, Utah State would wrap up The Old Oquirrh Bucket, awarded to the team that finished with the best record among BYU, Utah, Weber State and Utah State.

The Aggies crushed BYU 71-57 in their meeting two weeks ago in Logan and followed it with a 71-45 victory over Utah three days later.

Utah State beat Weber State 73-56 last Saturday.

The Aggies are just 2-2 on the road with wins over Georgia Southern and Northwestern at the Top of the World Classic in Fairbanks, Alaska, and losses to Central Florida (in Alaska) and at Fort Wayne last week.

"It's a lot easier to show up in front of 9,000 to 10,000 fans with the cheering and the screaming (at home) than to go on the road and show up in front of 500 fans," Nelson said. "We're not going to be able to be a good team until we can do that."

Morrill agreed.

"What I always get a kick out of is it's like we shouldn't get beat? Why are we getting beat? What have we done? Our past teams have played good on the road, but this team hasn't yet," he said.