USU basketball: Aggies still kings of WAC

LOGAN — Utah State had no interest in sharing first place atop the Western Athletic Conference standings.

And in increasing their home-court win streak to 28 games and their overall win streak to 12 with a 79-65 win over Boise State, the Aggies don't have to worry much about feeling crowded at the top of the WAC.

The win left even typically critical Aggie coach Stew Morrill satisfied.

"Once in a while they need to hear from me that they're doing OK," Morrill said after making his post-game team session the shortest in a long time. "And they're doing OK."

That might be a bit of an understatement. The Aggies now have the third-longest win streak in the country and are flirting with a Top 25 ranking.

Tai Wesley scored 26 points, Jared Quayle added 18 and the Aggies (17-1, 5-0 WAC) made sure the Broncos — who entered the game with hopes of creating a three-way tie for first — left Logan the latest in a long line of teams to be handed a defeat in the Spectrum.

Wesley had a big hand in making sure Utah State stayed unbeaten at home.

USU's power forward was just one point shy of his career-high and offset a sub-par game from center Gary Wilkinson. And he did it with a little flair.

Wesley found himself with the ball just inside the half-court line with less than a second to play in the half when Boise State's Anthony Thomas — public enemy No. 1 to the screaming Aggie fans — tried to pass the ball from the seat of his shorts.

Wesley lofted the ball in desperation toward the basket and threw his hands up in celebration as he hit nothing but net from almost 40 feet out, giving Utah State a 43-33 lead at the break.

"It felt good when it left my hand," Wesley said. "It felt real good when it went in."

But it didn't exactly kill off the Broncos (12-5, 3-2) who started out the second half with four quick points and eventually trimmed USU's lead to just three at 47-44 with 15 minutes to play.

But the Aggies responded and pushed their lead to 60-46 with 9:42 to play on a 13-2 run as Utah State fought off a BSU rally in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Wesley, again, came up strong down the stretch.

"A bucket, two buckets in a row, and I'm off," Wesley said of what his coach and teammates described as his "attack mode." "I'm wheeling and dealing and having fun."