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RENO, Nev. — The Utah State University men’s basketball team is hitting the road this week. The Aggies will first head to Reno to take on the Western Athletic Conference-leading University of Nevada Wolf Pack and then on to Fresno and the Fresno State University Bulldogs.
Heading into Thursday’s game, Nevada is on a 15-game winning streak (including a 78-71 victory over the Aggies in Logan); the team has only dropped three games all season.
Utah State had a rough game against the Wolf Pack, which has Aggie head coach Stew Morrill concerned.
“If we are going to compete with them at all, we've got to do a much better job than we did here in Logan, in several areas. First one, obviously, rebounding,” Morrill said.
The Aggies lost the battle of the boards 32-23 in Logan and will look to keep senior forwards Dario Hunt and Olek Czyz off the glass as the pair combined for 19 of Nevada’s rebounds the last time around. Those 19 rebounds led to the pair scoring a combined 28 points.
The biggest improvement the Aggies will need to make, though, is defending sophomore guard Deonte Burton.
"He is having a fabulous year,” Morrill said of Burton. “He does it all: he can shoot it, he can drive it, he's athletic, he can guard you — and he's really a good guard.”
Burton finished his night in Logan with a game-high 25 points.
Utah State is coming off an 82-65 win over San Jose State University at home on Saturday. Morrill saw a huge game from junior forward Kyisean Reed, who led his team with 21 points and eight rebounds. Morrill’s tandem of guards in senior Brockeith Pane and Preston Medlin poured in 15 points apiece against the Spartans and combined for seven rebounds and 10 assists.
Morrill will be looking for Reed to step up and lead the Aggies to a victory against the Wolf Pack. Pane and Medlin will have their hands full guarding Burton and his talented backcourt partner junior Malik Story, and Morrill needs Reed to “man up.”
“(Reed)’s got to get more physical or they'll dominate him again, and that has been the thing we have been pushing all year with Kyisean,” said Morrill on Tuesday. “When he can play in space like he did against San Jose State, boy, he is hard to stop, but when people get really physical with him it has been a problem. He's got to respond to that; it's time.”
The Aggies know what they will get out of Medlin and Pane (who average 15.3 and 12.5 points per game, respectively), but the question is: which Kyisean Reed will show up?
With senior forward Morgan Grim still hobbled by a nagging ankle injury, the load falls on Reed’s shoulders to be the catalyst for Utah State as the team looks to hand Nevada its first conference loss of the season.
Justin McKissick is a KSL.com contributor originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently seeking a communications degree. Justin has been covering USU sports since 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @justin_sr.
