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OREM — Legend is the Utah State point guard Shane Rector’s middle name and on Saturday night in the UCCU Center, he lived up to that name.
Rector made some of the biggest plays, one of which was a driving slam dunk in traffic with the shot clock running down to propel Utah State to an 80-79 overtime win over Utah Valley.
“Shane was tremendous," USU head coach Tim Duryea said. "He not only had offensive duties, but had a lot of pressure on him to guard (Brandon) Randolph in the middle of the floor when you are hugging up to take the three away."
Trailing 70-69 with 1:03 to play and the shot clock running down, Rector made the play of the game. Rector wound through the UVU defense and rose up through three defenders to slam home two of his 18 points and gave USU its first lead of the game at 71-70.
Isaac Neilson, who finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds, hit one of two free throws with 52 seconds left to send the game into overtime.
“UVU is a great team, and we’ve seen them beat BYU and a couple of other teams," Rector said. "We knew that we had to come in here and battle, and that is what we did. We grinded it out and came out with the W.”
In the overtime period, the teams went back and forth before Conner Toolson, who finished with a game-high 24 points to go along with 11 rebounds, hit a driving layup and gave UVU the 79-78 lead with seven seconds left.
Duryea then called a timeout to set up a play for his senior guard in the hopes Rector could make a play.
“Coach drew up a play and told me to get the ball," Rector said. "Ngor (Barnaba) was going to set a screen, and he told me to make something happen. That is what I did. I wanted the ball in my hand and I made something happen.”
Rector did make something happen, and as he was trying to go to the basket, UVU guard Brandon Randolph fouled him with 1.6 seconds left. Rector calmly knocked down both free throws to propel the Aggies to the in-state win.
"We could have made it a little easier on ourselves by making some free throws," Duryea said. "But there wasn’t a guy on our bench that doubted that Shane wasn’t going to make those last two. That’s what he does.”
With the win, USU improves to 5-4 while UVU drops to 5-4. Next up for USU is a midweek game at home against New Orleans, while UVU has a week off until a Saturday night contest at Weber State.
Kyle McDonald is a sports fan who loves the Chicago Cubs and the Utah Valley University Wolverines. He is a communication major at UVU and will graduate in the spring of 2017. Follow him on Twitter at @kylesportsbias
