Second-half struggle leads to loss against BYU

LOGAN – A 12-0 second-half run by BYU helped give the Cougars their first win over the Aggies in Logan in 14 years. The Aggies lost 91-81 in front of a sell-out Spectrum crowd and fell to 3-3 on the season.

“We’ve got to be more consistent if we are going to stay in games with that caliber of a team,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “Hopefully we’ll keep our head up. That’s the main thing I spoke to them about is just try and get more consistent. It does us no good to get our head down.”

For the majority of the game USU kept it close. There were 11 lead changes and six ties before the Aggies hit a scoring drought midway through the second half they were unable to recover from.

“For 30 minutes it was a good basketball game, but the game is 40 minutes and we didn’t compete with them for a period of the game,” Morrill said.

Foul trouble for David Collette added to the Aggies’ problems. The freshman starter played just 16 minutes but had 12 points and 5 rebounds.

“That’s a tough call,” Moore said of the Collette’s fifth foul that took him out of the game. “It could have went either way. It hurt us, him getting a block and fouling him out. He’s one of our main big guys, helps us rebound on offense.”

Chris Smith led the Aggies with 25 points. Darius Perkins added another 21. Jalen Moore recorded his first double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds.

“We need guys to come back and be able to step up a little bit,” Moore said. “If someone’s having an off-night we need someone else to be able to take their spot. Chris (Smith) stepped up tonight.”

Tyler Haws led the Cougars with 35 points and Kyle Collinsworth had 20. The BYU bench score 24 points compared to the 4 from the Aggie bench.

The Cougars grabbed 46 rebounds to USU’s 33. Of their 46, 17 were offensive rebounds.

“A lot of them were long bounces,” Moore said of BYU’s offensive rebounds. “Bigs got to get them. Guards got to come get them. Everybody has got to get their man. We’ve got to have all five guys rebounding.”

The Aggies will travel to Los Angeles to take on Southern California Sunday afternoon for their fourth road game of the season. Utah State beat the Trojans last year in Logan 78-65.

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