| Aggies
outshoot Broncos in WAC home opener
By G. Christopher Terry
January 17, 2006 | Boise State's Coby Karl led all
scorers with 23 points Thursday night in the Spectrum,
but USU's Nate Harris scored 20 despite being hampered
by foul trouble, and the Aggies won, 75-69.
Coach Stew Morrill said, "We kind of just hung in
there and found a way. We missed a bunch of free throws
and turned it over a little bit too much."
The Aggies turned the ball over 15 times to go with
15 assists while the Broncos only threw it away seven
times. This allowed Boise State to keep the game close
despite only shooting 35.5 percent to the Aggies' 49,
Morrill said.
Cass Matheus led the Aggies, who outrebounded the
Broncos 45-32, with 10 rebounds and also blocked three
shots. Like Harris, Matheus had four fouls called against
him and Morrill said the Brazilian had had "three jars
of an IV today, he's been sick and throwing up and dehydrated,
so that didn't help him a whole lot."
David Pak was three for six from three-point range
while playing 32 minutes at point guard and said, "I
just try and get it down low to Cass and Nate and let
them go to work, and if they kick it out be ready to
shoot it."
Jaycee Carroll and Durrall Peterson were the other
double figure scorers for the Aggies in a game the Broncos
seemed to be trying to turn into a rugby match.
"It was actually high intensity, you come in and people
want to play physical, want to push around and want
to talk junk, but you know we take all that on. We pride
ourselves on toughness," Peterson said.
Pak said that "things started to heat up" after Chris
Huber was called for a foul in the second half and the
Boise State players started jawing.
"They were starting to get physical and just talking
a lot throughout the game, and we just wanted to let
them know that we aren't backing down and we're playing
to win," Pak said. Nick Hammer hit two three-point shots
and got a steal to give the Aggies a lift in the second
half while Morrill saved Harris and Matheus for the
stretch run with four fouls apiece.
"You know, Hammer really helped us. I should have
mentioned something about Hammer - he's diving on the
floor, he hit some shots and I told him afterwards I
was really happy for him because he took advantage of
getting to play," Morrill said.
Morrill was also pleased with the high attendance
for the game.
"All I'm doing is asking for help, I'm not demanding
anything from the crowd. I'm just asking for help from
the crowd now that the WAC's here, and they were great,"
he said.
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