By Richy Zajic — Content Editor
The Spartans (8-4, 2-0 MW) came off the plane to Hawaii with a little jet lag it seemed, resulting in a poor shooting performance and a 75-56 loss to the Brigham Young University Cougars (5-4) Wednesday in their opening game of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational.
This was the team’s first double-digit loss of the season, and it seemed as though San Jose State was playing catch-up for the entirety of the game.
Here are three takeaways from an uncharacteristic game from a team sitting atop the Mountain West.
Basallo leaves a hole
As redshirt sophomore Ayzhiana Basallo continues to rehab an ankle sprain, the Spartans certainly missed her presence Wednesday.
Basallo is averaging 21.3 pts and 5.6 assists on the year, and without these numbers in play versus the Cougars, the Spartans only put up 56 points.
SJSU game out of the gate cold, and really did not heat up.
The Spartans shot 38 percent from the field and 23 percent from deep. It is definitely difficult to win games shooting like that.
Defense still pesky
While yes, allowing another team to have those shooting percentages is not optimal, sometimes that really cannot be controlled a lot.
The Spartans still forced 20 BYU turnovers, which is a good sign moving forward.
If they can keep getting more and more possessions, they will likely win more games it is just that simple.
Just one game
A double-digit loss definitely stings, there is no getting around that. However, this way just one, non-conference game so it should be easy to forget about.
Especially without their best player in the lineup, the Spartans should learn what they can from this game, and move on.
The Spartans next game will be the second matchup of the Invitational. It will be Thursday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. versus Northern Arizona University (2-6).
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