Utah State basketball: Aggies face Cinderella Spartans in WAC semifinals

LAS VEGAS — Utah State will be playing the role of Goliath in tonight's Western Athletic Conference semifinals, as the Aggies will be taking on eighth-seeded San Jose State.

The Spartans are the Cinderella team of the WAC Tournament. Coming in as the bottom seed, the Spartans were supposed to be first-round fodder for Hawaii on Wednesday morning — so much so that the school did not even send its pep band to Las Vegas. But the Spartans survived to see another day when a late Hawaii tip-in was deemed to have come after the final buzzer, sending San Jose State into Thursday's quarterfinals.

On Thursday morning against Idaho, the Spartans did not look like a team that was playing its second game in 24 hours.

San Jose State got 28 points apiece from Adrian Oliver, the nation's third-leading scorer, and Keith Shamburger. The outing for Shamburger was a career high for the freshman, exceeding his previous high of 22 set back in December.

Now the Spartans are moving on to face the thousand-pound Gorilla in the conference — Utah State. The Spartans will be playing their third game in three days; the Aggies, meanwhile, have been resting in Logan all week.

"Utah State is the top dog in the conference record-wise, and that just adds even more juice to us," the Spartans' Oliver said. "At this point, we know how to manage our confidence playing two games and winning two games, and that only helps us. We have an advantage on Utah State because we aren't tired; we are just warmed up. Utah State is going to come in cold, and we are going to fight them to the end."

USU head coach Stew Morrill does not think that the Spartans will be weary, either.

"Fatigue can be a factor, but sometimes you are running on adrenaline and it doesn't matter," Morrill said. "We've played a lot of conference tournaments and played three games in three nights, and it sure didn't feel like we've been tired."

The confidence the Spartans are gaining with each day is going to be a big concern to the Aggies.

"People get overly caught up in records," San Jose State head coach George Nessman said. "Records reflect what you've done, but it takes into account injuries and other bumbles.

"We haven't lost our confidence since August. We know what we can do, and we believe in ourselves. There is not a person in our locker room that is surprised we are here."