Utah State basketball: SLCC pipeline to Logan has enriched Aggies

LOGAN — Every coach likes to have fertile ground to find recruits.

And for Utah State men's basketball coach Stew Morrill, Salt Lake Community College is not just a place where star players are found — it's where they are developed.

"There's a nice connection there," Morrill said. "I kidded (SLCC coach Norm Parrish) for a number of years that we're not getting a lot of their guys. Then it started happening."

And amazing results followed.

The most notable recruit to make the jump from the Bruins' Taylorsville campus to Logan was Gary Wilkinson. He was nothing short of spectacular as an Aggie, leading USU to back-to-back regular-season titles in the Western Athletic Conference while earning league MVP honors as a senior.

"When we recruited Gary, we told him this was a 'no brainer.' You can stay in-state," Morrill said, "and play in front of your family and have a great experience."

This year, USU has a pair of Bruins on the roster.

And they'll lead the Aggies into a huge WAC battle tonight against Nevada.

Starting center Nate Bendall is back in the Aggie fold while Brian Green is one of the best bench players in the WAC and an emotional sparkplug on offense.

"I'm glad to be back," said Bendall, who played a year at Utah State as a freshman but left the team for an LDS mission and then resumed his hoops career at SLCC. "It's something I was familiar with and wasn't a hard decision to make."

But it was a decision that he could have made differently.

During his freshman year, Bendall averaged 2.4 points and 1.5 rebounds in 13 games with the Aggies. Though a solid 6-foot-9 player, his skillset wasn't necessarily where it needed to be and the Aggies had a lot of players on the roster that figured to get more playing time.

So Morrill found the talented, but raw, player a home at SLCC.

"That all worked out," Morrill said, noting he was taking a chance that Bendall would develop as expected but also be recruited by other schools.

The reciprocal relationship between Division I and junior college coaches has long been understood. And Morrill is grateful for it as he believes it can help both programs as well as the players involved.