Utah St., Utah Utes basketball: Aggies pull away in second half

USU-Utah boxscore

LOGAN — No wonder Utah would be just as happy not to play Utah State here any more.

The Aggies beat the Utes for the seventh straight time at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, taking a 79-62 victory Wednesday night amid talk the Utes wouldn't be playing in Logan, or perhaps anywhere against Utah State, in the immediate future.

"We definitely wanted to win this in-state game, especially with it probably being the last time Utah comes here for awhile," said USU coach Stew Morrill.

"With all the talk about Utah not playing here again, we wanted to make sure we sent them out on the right note," said Brady Jardine, who scored a career-high 20 points and pulled down 13 rebounds.

On Tuesday, Morrill complained about Utah not wanting to continue its 102-year series with Utah State, saying, "They said they are going into the Pac-10 and their schedule is full, and they don't want to come to Logan."

Utah athletics director Chris Hill disputed that somewhat, saying nothing has been decided yet. Ute coach Jim Boylen wouldn't comment after the game, referring all questions about the series to Hill.

The Aggies certainly seemed to be the more motivated team while improving to 3-1 on the season, the same record Utah went home with after the loss..

USU jumped on the Utes early, grabbing an early double-digit lead, saw the lead cut to one briefly, early in the second half, before extending the lead to its largest margin on a 3-pointer by Tai Wesley with one second left in the game.

Wesley finished with a game-high 21 points to lead the Aggies and also had eight rebounds and four blocked shots. Besides Jardine's 20, the only other Aggie in double figures was Pooh Williams with 11 points.

Boylen pointed to rebounds (45-32 for USU), poor shooting (37.9 percent) and second-chance points as the main reasons for his team's defeat.

"I thought overall our defense was pretty good, but I thought second-chance points were a big part of the game," Boylen said. "We had 13 more shots than they did, but didn't make our open shots."

The Utes were led by Will Clyburn with 16 points, Josh Watkins with 15 and Shawn Glover with 13. The Utes only got four points from their center position as David Foster and Jason Wasburn each scored two points and combined for only three rebounds.

"It all came down to toughness," said Watkins. "This was our first time on the road and we had a hostile environment and we weren't tough enough."