Aggies continue WAC tailspin

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The law of averages final caught up with the Utah State Aggies.

In the last five meetings between the Aggies and San Jose State, the final score was never more than 11 points in favor of the Aggies each time.

On Monday night, the Spartans were on the winning end of a close one.

For the second straight game, the Spartans outshot and outrebounded the Aggies, but this time they have a win to show for it.

Chris Oakes scored a career-high 21 points, while Time Pierce and C.J. Webster added 16 and 15 points, respectively, as the Spartans upset first-place Utah State, 70-67, Monday night, dropping the Aggies into a tie with Nevada with four Western Athletic Conference losses.

The loss was Utah State's third loss in seven days — all on the road — and matched the longest losing streak under head coach Stew Morrill since his first season at USU, 1998-99.

The tailspin began with a 85-80 loss at Nevada last Monday, then they blew a 14-point second-half lead in a 71-66 loss to Hawaii Saturday, and then capped off with the loss to San Jose State.

"(It) was a tough week. A really tough week," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "We went from the penthouse to the outhouse in one week."

The Aggies (18-9, 8-4) trailed by as many as 15 points in the second half and managed to cut the lead to three on two occasions. The first came at the 8:39 mark of the second half when Jaycee Carroll, who scored a game-high 31 points, knocked down one of his four 3-pointers in the game.

After cutting the deficit to 60-57, the Aggies went nearly four minutes without scoring a field goal — they had one free throw during that span — and San Jose State (12-13, 4-8) built the lead back to eight with 4:27 left.

Kris Clark drilled a 3-pointer to cut the gap to five, and had ample chances to get it closer, but they missed their next four shots.

Trailing by five with less than a minute to play, Carroll scored to cut it to three again with 38 seconds left, and San Jose missed the front end of a one-and-one situation to leave the door slightly ajar.

However, the Aggies missed three 3-pointers on one possession, and then had one last chance with 3.1 seconds left, when they had the ball out of bounds on their own end line for one more chance to tie the game. But Carroll threw the ball away.