Utah State basketball: Aggies get a welcome break from conference play

LOGAN — In the middle of the "dog days" of February, Utah State is going to take a welcome break from conference play this week, starting with Montana Western.

The Bulldogs of Montana Western are an NAIA squad from Dillon, Mont., and are Frontier Conference mates of Westminster College. Coach Stew Morrill acknowledges that the timing of a game against a non-Division I one opponent is strange.

"With the BracketBuster situation, you would think it is something that we would be used to, but throwing the Montana Western game in with the BracketBuster game is kind of an odd situation," Morrill said. "As I look back on when we scheduled this Montana Western game, I remember thinking that I have never had back-to-back, one-game weeks this late in the season. That is what we had going when we scheduled our BracketBuster game and it just so happened that it was our week in league play to only have one game the following week, and I just didn't want that.

"Honestly, it is really difficult to find a non-league game in the middle of February," Morrill continued. "I am good friends with the Frontier Conference commissioner, so I gave him a call and the Montana Western team jumped out as a team that we could make it work with."

The game gives the Aggies a chance to fine tune their game but still get a break from practice.

"If I am a player, I would much rather have games than just more practice time, and we took that into consideration as a staff," Morrill said. "Our team knows the value of practice, but this late in the season we would much rather have our guys in a game situation over additional practices. That's how this situation came to be and how it happened. I am actually looking forward to having some extra practice time these next two weeks.

"After the Montana Western game we will have a few days before the Saint Mary's game, and then next week we get more time before the Idaho game that will allow us to get some extra practices in and benefit us a bit."

HOME OPENER: Morrill announced on his weekly radio show that it was likely that the Aggies would play BYU in their home opener next season. At his press conference on Tuesday Morrill emphasized that the deal was not yet final, but was optimistic.