This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Logan • Utah State doesn't have Tai Wesley or five other seniors from a golden age of Aggie hoops. Furthermore, Stew Morrill starts a freshman, a redshirt sophomore, a senior who has hardly played before this season and is breaking in nine new players in all.
But the Aggies still have Brockeith Pane, who on most nights this season will be the best player on the floor. And when you have the best player on the court, particularly a point guard, your chances of winning increase dramatically.
On Friday night before a tense sold out crowd at the Spectrum, Pane proved the old basketball adage true, scoring a game-high 21 points as Utah State defeated BYU 69-62 in the season-opener for two teams with high hopes.
Pane scored 17 of those points in the second half. His pressure on Brock Zylstra threw the entire Cougars offense off-kilter, and he made almost every important play down the stretch.
"I thought it was a team effort," Pane said. "We came out ready to play. We were aggressive and hungry. We've been beating each other up for two weeks, and we were tired of that. We wanted to play against somebody else."
Even with this being the first game, it was still important for both teams. Aside from bragging rights, both teams need quality out of conference wins, and if BYU goes on to do well in the West Coast Conference, this victory will loom large in March in the eyes of the NCAA Selection Committee.
On Friday, the Aggies were able to do this with a 17-2 second-half run that turned a 42-38 deficit into a 55-44 advantage with just under five minutes remaining.
Two years ago, Preston Medlin hit the go-ahead three-pointer as a skinny freshman when Utah State beat the Cougars in the Spectrum. Now a redshirt sophomore, Medlin did the same thing, swishing a three-pointer from the left wing to give his team a 45-42 advantage it would never surrender.
"That run was obviously a big point of the game," BYU head coach Dave Rose said. "We got stuck on 42. We missed a couple of shots and we panicked a little bit. We took some shots out of character, but we stayed on 42 a little too long. We will learn lessons from this game and we will get better."
It was USU's defensive pressure that forced the Cougars out of character. With Zylstra running the BYU offense but not a true point guard, Pane started pressuring full-court. Morrill inserted Kyisean Reed to play with Brady Jardine, and the two 6-foot-7 jumping jacks started causing the bigger Cougar inside guys problems with their quickness and athleticism.
The pace got quicker. Utah State began scoring easy baskets in transition, Medlin began making perimeter daggers, and the Cougars soon faced a double-digit deficit they couldn't rally from.
"I was really pleased that we could out-rebound them considering how big they were," Morrill said. "Brockeith and Kyisean came up with a two-man press sort of on their own … and you know what? They were pretty smart for that."
Medlin scored 15 points to help Pane, while Jardine scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Noah Hartsock led BYU with 18 points. Former Logan High star Charles Abouo scored 16 points, and Brandon Davies, in his first game back from an honor code suspension, scored 13, all in the second half.
Twitter: @tonyaggieville