Ags return home licking wounds

LOGAN — To find out how Utah State is feeling these days you need not look any further than its mascot — the Aggies are snorting mad.

A 73-66 double-overtime loss to Pacific and a 70-67 loss to CS Northridge last week on the road put the Aggies in a rotten mood.

"It's always tough when you have to get back to work after disappointing losses," Utah State basketball coach Stew Morrill said. "You really have two choices: You can sit around feeling sorry for yourself, which does you absolutely no good, or you can get a little irritated and try to get better, and hopefully that's the course of action we're taking."

The losses dropped the Aggies to 2-3 in league play for the first time since the 1998-99 season. That year the Aggies finished conference play 8-8, and they lost to Santa Barbara in the first round of the Big West Conference tournament.

The Aggies (11-5, 2-3) will attempt to right the ship tonight when they host Cal State Fullerton (8-5, 3-2) tonight at 7 in the Smith Spectrum.

"Our guys are fine. These are young kids, they 're resilient and they bounce back pretty quickly," Morrill said. " I would be shocked if this group doesn't compete every night out, all the way through the end of the year, regardless of what happens. That's just kind of the make-up of this group."

The Aggies have won six straight over the Titans and 20 of their last 22 dating back to 1993.

The Titans, currently third in the league, have won five of their last seven games but enter the game on the heels of a 97-81 loss to UC Irvine.

Counting tonight's game with the Titans, the Aggies have played the top four teams in the league, and three of them were on the road.

"What happens when you get to league is everything is magnified in terms of your strengths and weaknesses, and everybody knows what you can and can't do and how they want to try and play you," Morrill said. "The fewer weaknesses you have, the better off you obviously are."

As of late, the Aggies have had problems at point guard and guarding people off the dribble. Neither problem is new, but both have been exploited by BWC teams.

The trio of point guards — Chris Huber, David Pak and Calvin Brown — committed eight of the Aggies' 17 turnovers at Northridge and combined to score just six points.