BYU, Utah State basketball: Aggies shoot past Cougars in second half

LOGAN — Behind a smothering defense, some ice-cold shooting from its opponent and a second-half offensive outburst from Jared Quayle, Utah State stormed past BYU for a 71-61 win in front a frenzied crowd Wednesday night at the Spectrum to knock the Cougars from the ranks of the unbeaten.

And in the process, Aggie coach Stew Morrill reaffirmed his love for the loud crowd his team has grown accustomed to.

"The crowd is crazy," Morrill said. "It is as good as it gets in college basketball. We love this kind of atmosphere."

Utah State used a straight-up, man-to-man defense to stifle the Cougars over the final 20 minutes of the game and turn a three-point BYU lead into a going-away victory in front of a boisterous sellout crowd.

BYU's top scorers, Jimmer Fredette and Jonathon Tavernari, combined to shoot just 6-of-26 from the floor as the Aggies (4-2) kept the pressure on them and forced a bundle of quick, rushed shots that frequently missed their mark.

"We guarded pretty dang hard the whole game," Morrill said. "And in the second half, we really hunkered down and played some good defense."

The Cougars (5-1) made only 30 percent of their second-half shots and finished the game with an uninspiring 38.9 percent average. Fredette scored 19 points on 5-of-16 shooting, but Tavernari was largely ineffective, scoring only four points and missing 10 of his 11 shots.

Utah State's Jared Quayle, himself mired in a shooting slump, emerged in the second half to lead the Aggies with 22 points.

"My defense usually gets me going," Quayle said. "We got some key stops and I felt like that got our offense going. When I went coast to coast (after a rebound for a layup), that was a good feeling. I felt like I had a lot more energy."

And it carried over to the rest of the team.

BYU was the squad showing the impressive defense in the first half, limiting an adrenaline-packed Aggie team to 38 percent shooting and taking a 35-32 lead at the break and holding an 18-17 rebounding edge.

Quayle suffered through a miserable first half, hitting just 1-of-5 shots and picking up three personal fouls trying to guard the outside shooters of BYU.

Thanks to a flurry of missed shots in the paint, the Aggies shot just 38.7 percent in the first 20 minutes. But thanks to decent ball control — just three turnovers to go with 10 assists — the Aggies found themselves lucky to be trailing just 35-32 at the break.