Photo By Maxwell Bechtoldt
By Matt Weiner (@MattWeiner20) — MBB Beat Reporter
Thursday night’s 78-62 defeat makes it nine straight losses to open up conference play for the San Jose State Spartans (7-14, MW 0-9), this one coming byway of the Utah State Aggies (14-9, MW 5-5).
The scoreboard said deja vu for the Spartans, yet it had a real chance of breaking the losing streak, only down one at the half. Suffice to say this was mostly because of Utah State turning into an igloo from the field, at one point missing 12 straight and 2 of 17 toward the end of the half.
Justin Bean, the Aggies’ leading scorer, couldn’t get anything to go down, only shooting 2 of 10. Utah State ended the first half shooting 13 of 35 from the field and looked lackadaisical. The Aggies gave the Spartans a mile and they only took a couple feet. Although Tibet Gorener and Trey Smith combined to go 4 of 8 from 3 and Omari Moore scoring 9 points on 4 of 5 FGs, there was little to celebrate.
Part of this is related to Trey Anderson getting whacked in the face two minutes after tip off and never returning to the floor. SJSU head coach Tim Miles after the game said that he’s undergoing concussion protocol and there was no timetable on his return. For Anderson, this was immensely frustrating as he’s been appearing to answer the Bat Signal beckoning for a second scorer.
When the second half kicked off, it was all Aggies.
Justin Bean turned his ugly first half into the next winner of Miss America with 12 points on 5 of 6 from the field. Brandon Horvath saw Bean’s performance and decided to raise the hand going for 13 points and ending the day with a team leading 19.
Rule No. 1 of basketball is never play with a watch on your wrist for player safety and rule No. 2 is to never let anyone streak behind you in full court press. Gorener lost sight of the streaking Horvath and the Aggies reeled in the deep pass like Randy Moss on Thanksgiving Day.
The Aggies exposed the Spartans’ lack of big man in the second half, scoring them by 16 points in the paint and by 15 points overall in the final 20 minutes.
Time for silver linings because there are positives to walk away with.
Alvaro Cardenas had 9 points, the most in a single game for the freshman since Dec. 17 at Portland.
Developing a spot-up three game would be huge for him and add another element for the defense to juggle.
With Anderson being out for 38 minutes, Myron Amey Jr. and Josh O’Garro got 20 minutes of playing time and were top three in +/-.
With a depleted roster, both freshmen have the opportunity to make a name for themselves and earn future playing time.
Smith’s 14 points were the most in Mountain West play and the hope is that he found the stroke he’s been searching desperately for.
“The results aren’t what we want them to be at all,” Miles said. “But that team battled tonight and did a lot of good things we can build on.”