WSU, Utah State basketball: Aggies hang on in nail-biter vs. WSU

OGDEN — Like chess masters, Stew Morrill and Randy Rahe know each other's moves and counter moves.

It came as no surprise, then, that when the two friends and now rivals sent their teams to battle at the Dee Events Center it was anything but a blowout.

"I'll take it," Morrill exhaled after his Aggies slipped out of Ogden with a 66-60 win over the Wildcats. "It was a tough game, a road game. Any time you can open on the road and get a win, I'll take it."

Rahe, who spent 13 years as Morrill's assistant, had his team well prepared for the Aggies and it was apparent from the opening tip.

"We knew what we were getting ourselves into," said Weber State point guard Damian Lillard, who had a game-high 20 points. "We knew that they were going to give us their best shot. They got on their runs, and we made our run but it just wasn't enough for us."

Each team is a defending conference champ and was predicted to repeat as champions in preseason polls.

That level of confidence and ability, however, took a back seat as opening-game jitters and some tight officiating caused the game to take a sloppy feel almost from the tip.

"You just have to grind it out," USU guard Jared Quayle said. "We were fortunate to come in here and get a win."

The crowd of 9,272 had the Dee Events Center in mid-season form and the teams matched that intensity if not execution.

Neither team was able to get into a decent offensive rhythm for much of the game — especially not with both sets of post players spending significant time on the bench with foul trouble.

"Give Weber credit," Morrill said. "They took us out of a lot of our offense with their defense."

Still, Utah State trailed only once — at 2-0 just three second into the game — and had a few moments where the Aggies threatened to blow it open.

Weber State gave the Aggies every opportunity they needed to take over the game in the first half — shooting just 30 percent and making only 1-of-9 3-point attempts.

Utah State, on the other hand, played like it didn't want to take a big lead.

With 10 first-half turnovers and foul trouble in the post — Tai Wesley, Nate Bendall and Matt Fromisano each had two fouls and played no more than 11 minutes in the opening period — the Aggies failed to pull away and led 28-21 at the break behind 10 points from Tyler Newbold.

"I think we were probably a little overly excited, and you could tell with our shooting," Rahe said. "I thought we hurried our shooting a little bit and we're a better shooting team then we showed tonight."