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Date Posted: 07:50:26 02/27/02 Wed
Author: Jon Ralston
Subject: Aggies concerned about road swing

Road trip stands between Ags, title


Utah State faces Pacific, Northridge

02/27/02
Gregg Hardy
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There is a pot of gold waiting for the Utah State Aggies at the end of this road trip — their last two games of the regular season. They just need to go and grab it.

But that may be easier said than done, according to head coach Stew Morrill.

“This week presents a tremendous challenge,” said Morrill, whose Aggies are winners of eight straight and can claim the Big West championship with a road sweep this week. “Sometimes, I don’t think people realize how tough it is to go on the road and win.

“I know when we play at home, everyone thinks we’re just automatically gonna win. And that’s what you’re dealing with when you go to a lot of different places: they expect to win at home.” The task the Aggies face could prove awfully difficult with a Thursday night game in Stockton Calif., against the Pacific Tigers, who may be a mediocre 9-7 in league play but are a dangerous 6-1 at home in league. After Pacific, Utah State (13-3 Big West, 21-4 overall) will bus down to Northridge for a Saturday night contest against the Cal State Northridge Matadors, who, at 9-7 in league, are tied with Pacific and UC Santa Barbara for third place. It was only a month ago that the Matadors were tied for first place with UC Irvine. Since then, they lost five straight but now appear to be back on the winning track with two straight victories.

Utah State beat both the Tigers (81-71) and Matadors (73-56) in a couple of pre-Christmas league games at the Spectrum.

“It’s going to be a tough road trip for us,” Aggie forward Desmond Penigar said. “You know Pacific, they always get up for Utah State. That’s going to be a tough game. And Northridge, I didn’t think Northridge was that bad when they played us. They’ve got some nice big guys. They’re long and athletic, they get up and down the court.”

Said Aggie center Jeremy Vague: “It’ll definitely be a tough (road trip). We’re all tired. We’ve got to finish up strong, though. We’ve got two more games until the (Big West) tournament, but we’ve got to keep going and take bigger strides now.”

Because Pacific and Cal State Northridge play vastly different styles, Morrill said the Aggies are spending time preparing for both teams this week.

Like Utah State, the Tigers run a lot of set plays and are known for their physical play. The last several meetings between the two teams have been knock-down, drag-out battles, with the Aggies winning the last six of them, including a 62-51 decision last season at Pacific’s Spanos Center.

The Matadors, on the other hand, rely on their athleticism and like to press their opponents for most, if not all, of the game’s 40 minutes.

“Pacific is a system team in that they run all their stuff and they’re very good at it,” Morrill said. “... And then you try and prepare for Northridge, and a huge part of the game is how you handle their press, which they’re going to do pretty much from start to finish at home.

“If we get outphysicalled (at Pacific), we have no chance to win. If we don’t handle the press at Northridge, we have no chance to win.”

With an eight-game winning streak and the regular-season title so close, Morrill believes his players will enter this week’s action with supreme confidence.

“I do think our guys are in a real good frame of mind, and they think they’re plenty capable of winning any game we might play right now,” Morrill said. “Then we’ve got to go out and do it.”

Utah State, which has clinched no worse than a No. 2 seed at next week’s Big West Tournament, can still win the regular-season championship if it splits this week’s games and UC Irvine loses its finale at Long Beach State Thursday. The only scenario in which the Aggies cannot be the No. 1 seed at the tournament: they lose both games and UC Irvine beats Long Beach State.

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