Utah State basketball: Cold shooting dooms Aggies to another NCAA first-round exit

SPOKANE — Sitting on a 17-game win streak just six days earlier, Utah State didn't expect this.

The Aggies, the Western Athletic Conference regular-season champions for the third season in a row, felt they had the experience, the confidence and the talent to show up at this year's NCAA Tournament and last longer than 40 minutes.

Turns out, this season's Aggies weren't much different than last season's Aggies and made a first-round exit from the big dance after a 69-53 loss to Texas A&M.

"We haven't played anybody as good as Texas A&M," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "That's a really good basketball team. That's a 13 RPI team, a Top 25 team, an 11-5 team in the best conference in the country and they showed me why today. It was the competition."

Indeed Texas A&M was good Friday afternoon. The No. 23-ranked Aggies from the Lone Star State put the hurt on Utah State with a stifling defense that shut down a previously smooth-running USU offensive machine.

"I thought that Texas A&M really put on a dominating defensive performance," Morrill said. "They deserve all the credit in the world. They made it very difficult for us to get good looks at the basket."

Even when Utah State did, the shots weren't falling.

Shooting just 38.7 percent — just 35.5 percent in the second half — the Aggies couldn't make enough of a rally in the second half to overcome a 13-point hole at the break.

Texas A&M was not especially sharp on offense, either.

Leading scorer Donald Sloan was pestered by USU's Pooh Williams and finished with only 10 points.

But the Texas Aggies got a monster game from previously unnoticeable Khris Middleton. The freshman wing player entered the game averaging 7 points and just 29-percent shooting on 3-point shots.

He ended the game making five of six 3-pointers and scored a career high 19.

And with a solid all-around effort that resulted in a 49-percent shooting performance, Texas A&M had more than enough depth, talent and skill to make sure Utah State knew what BYU had already discovered twice over — the Aggies from College Station are, indeed, nothing to take lightly.

In fact, with A&M's win over Utah State, the red Aggies became one of only two schools with wins in each of the last five NCAA Tournaments.

"I was shocked at how strong and physical they were," Utah State's Tai Wesley said. "They came out just at the start and really were trying to throw us around. That really surprised me and you got to give them credit."