Utah State basketball: Aggies wallop Fullerton foe 83-60

LOGAN — Stew Morrill and Utah State host an annual holiday tournament for a couple of primary reasons.

One, it gives the Aggies a couple of extra home games and two, it gives his team an opportunity to practice for a much-more important three-day stage — the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

On Tuesday night, Morrill got exactly what he wanted and then some in a comfortable 83-60 cruise past Cal State-Fullerton.

"The stats say we played pretty good," Morrill understated. "A lot of guys contributed and a lot of guys played pretty well."

And a lot of guys got plenty of rest as Morrill was free to dip into his bench and scrap much of his complex offensive game plan in order to prevent Weber State's coaches from getting any edge as they scouted the game.

Utah State faces the Wildcats tonight in the finale of the Basketball Travelers Invitational at 8 p.m.

The Aggies used a blistering shooting performance over the first 15 minutes to build a lead as large as 23 points over their former conference mates. Jared Quayle, Pooh Williams, Preston Medlin and Tyler Newbold led the charge with deadly 3-point shooting and USU closed out the first half connecting on 58.6 percent of their shots overall and were 7 of 12 from 3-point range.

"For whatever reason they decided to come out and zone us," Morrill said. "We have always told our teams that people can't zone us. That's the way we want our teams to feel. We want our shooters to free up and shoot the ball."

They certainly did.

Utah State finished the game with a 56.9-percent average and hit 9 of 15 shots from beyond the line.

By contrast, the Titans limped home with a 35.8 percent effort and never threatened the Aggies.

"Obviously we got so far down playing in that zone," Titans coach Bob Burton said. "We were quickly down 20, they just shot lights out."

But as has been the case when USU builds a big lead, they got a little sloppy and complacent and allowed Fullerton to mount a little rally to close the half and hit the locker rooms trailing by only 14 at 44-30.

But another Newbold 3-pointer followed by a dunk and layup by Bendall put Utah State back up by 20.

Four Aggies reached double figures in scoring with Tai Wesley leading the way with 13 in only 24 minutes. Quayle, Bendall and Williams each added a dozen.

Nobody on the Aggie roster played more than 28 minutes and five subs got at least 10 minutes of action.

"We played really solid," said Williams, who capped his night with a two-handed throwdown of an alley-oop pass from Brady Jardine. "The first thing was we had to go out and take care of the defense. After that, the shots started falling."

One more win and Utah State will have an important title ?— though not the WAC crown they most want.

A win over Weber State tonight will give the Aggies the Old Oquirrh Bucket for the second year in a row with the best record against in-state opponents. They earned a home win over BYU and suffered a narrow loss against the University of Utah on the road.

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