Utah State basketball: Aggies surprised a few with success

That Utah State had another 23-plus win season surprised few. That the Aggies, who graduated the school's all-time leading scorer in All-American guard Jaycee Carroll and still managed to blitz their way through the Western Athletic Conference, set school records for consecutive wins, total wins in a season while cracking the Top 25 polls on a pair of occasions?

Well, that caught a few people off guard.

Lots of wins in Logan have become the norm. But rattling off 19 in a row, notching 30 overall wins and wrapping up a WAC title with three weeks left in the season surpassed the expectations of pretty much everyone associated with the program.

"If you had told me before the season began that we'd be here and playing (in the NCAA Tournament) I'd have said let's do it," Aggie coach Stew Morrill said. "This has really been an amazing year."

The Aggies, despite losing Carroll, were not exactly shy on experience when the season started. Center Gary Wilkinson was tabbed the WAC pre-season MVP and lived up to that prediction with 17.1 points and 6.8 rebounds per game and being named the league player of the year as well as conference tournament MVP.

After opening the season with five wins, the Aggies lost to BYU at EnergySolutions Arena but did not lose in any of the next 19 games.

By that time, the Aggies were 24-1 and had already secured a piece of the WAC regular season title with a 12-0 record.

Junior college transfer Jared Quayle emerged as one of the conference's top players and was, according to a handful of WAC coaches, just as valuable to the Aggies as Wilkinson.

And with sophomores Tai Wesley, Tyler Newbold and Pooh Williams each filling roles, Utah State cruised to the WAC title with plenty of room to spare.

Along the way, USU was ranked as high as 17th in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and 21st in the Associated Press poll.

The 49.6 percent field goal shooting average was the best in the nation — the second year in a row the Aggies led the NCAA — and USU went 17-0 at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum for the second season in a row.

Yet, not everything was a dreamy success for the Ags.

After clinching the WAC title fairly early, USU lost a little sharpness and lost three of five games — all on the road at Boise State, Saint Mary's and Nevada — and left plenty of doubt in the Aggies' worthiness of an at-large bid if they didn't win the WAC tourney. Despite an RPI hovering in the 20s throughout the latter part of the season, USU's strength of schedule was repeatedly pointed out as a weakness on the Utah State resume.