Utah State basketball: Aggies not intimidated by NCAA hoopla

SPOKANE, Wash. — Utah State has had it pretty tough in recent NCAA Tournament appearances.

In the previous six trips to the Big Dances with Stew Morrill as coach, the Aggies have faced Connecticut, Ohio State, UCLA, Kansas, Arizona, Washington and Marquette.

Now comes Texas A&M — not exactly a member of college basketball's royalty but certainly worthy of Utah State's respect.

"It's been talked a lot about, that we haven't won a game since 2001," Morrill said. "The good news is we keep coming back and trying."

And try the Aggies will do again when they face an A&M team that finished second in the nation's top rated conference.

"We have been seven out of 11 years to the NCAA Tournament," Morrill noted. "If you look at who we have played, it's a who's who of college basketball..."

Today, Utah State will try — for just the second time since 1970 — to take a step toward being one of those programs.

But past history is just that to the Aggies.

"We haven't really addressed that at all," USU forward Tai Wesley said. "What's been said to us by our coach is that we matchup really well and we feel like we can win this game and break that kind of down streak that we have had."

To do that, the Aggies will rely on the experience they enjoy.

While Texas A&M is also an experienced squad, these Aggies have been to the last five NCAA Tournaments, Utah State is looking back at last year's 1-point loss to Marquette as something to build on.

It's certainly something the Aggies have thought about plenty of times since they gave up a 6-point lead late in the second half a year ago.

"I still think about that game to this day," USU guard Pooh Williams said. "It was a tough loss for us. The first half, we were really nervous. ... So I think that game right there is going to help a lot of the returning players this year. I don't think anybody's going to be that nervous in the first half so I think we should be OK."

Utah State is again one of the best shooting teams in the nation. The Aggies average 49.1 percent shooting from the floor overall (seventh in the nation) and 41.9 percent (second in the nation) from 3-point range.