Pacific stuns Utah St. with late rally

LOGAN — The University of the Pacific proved why it deserves to be nationally ranked.

Trailing by eight points with 51.3 seconds left in the game, the Tigers ended the game on a 12-3 run, including the final eight, to pull off the 64-63 victory over Utah State Saturday night.

"We kept playing to the final buzzer," said UOP guard Mike Webb, who scored all 10 of his points in the final 2:24 of the game. "That's the way we're taught to play and we kept playing and playing because you never know what's going to happen."

Pacific's Christian Maraker capped the comeback with a 15-foot jumper with 2.3 seconds left for his only two points of the second half. He finished with 12 points in the game.

The Aggies didn't get a time-out called and managed a 65-footer in an attempt to win it at the buzzer. The loss snapped an eight-game winning streak for the Aggies.

After taking the eight-point lead with 51 seconds left the Aggies collapsed from the foul line. At one point in the final five minutes, the Aggies hit 10 straight foul pitches, but they hit just 2-of-5 shots in the last 38 seconds. David Pak missed two with 11.7 seconds left that could have given the Aggies a two- or three-point advantage.

"We gave it away plain and simple. We made a lot of mistakes," Utah State forward Spencer Nelson said. "Give Pacific a lot of credit for winning the game, but give us a lot of credit for giving one away."

Along with missing foul shots, the Aggies fouled a shooter on a 3-point attempt and turned the ball over on a long inbounds pass with less than 20 seconds left.

With the loss, the Aggies fall to 18-6 overall and 9-4 in league play, and fall a half-game behind Northridge for second place in the league.

With the win, the Tigers, who reached the AP Top 25 for the first time in school history earlier in the week, improved to 20-2 overall and 14-0 in league play.

The Tigers extended their league winning streak to 26 straight while winning their 16th consecutive game this year.

Maraker, who is making a bid for conference player of the year, sat the bench for a considerable time late in the second half before returning to hit the game-winning jumper.

Pak gave the Aggies the eight-point lead with 51.3 seconds left with a pair of foul shots, but they would score only three more points the rest of the game, allowing Pacific to escape with the victory.