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Show StatesmanSportS Page 12 Turnovers: Ags give ball away 23 times O continuedfrompage 9 AGGIE CENTER GARY W I L K I N S O N shoots over Weber State's Tyler Billings. Wilkinson led all Aggie scorers with 21 points. He also collected eight rebounds, a block and a steal in his 31 minutes Saturday night Wilkinson is a transfer from Salt Lake Community College. TYLER LARSON photo and made both free throws to cut the lead down to five with 1:02 left in the game. After a Weber State timeout, Utah State's strategy was to foul the Wildcats as soon as possible and make them shoot free throws. Valeika converted on l-of-2 free throws for Weber State, and then on the offensive end of the court, DuCharme tipped in a missed shot to make the score 72-68 for Weber State with 43 seconds left to play. Things got interesting when Weber State guard Dezmon Harris missed on two straight free throws to keep the Aggie chances alive. Once again, Stephens took the ball to the basket and was fouled and converted on two free throws to cut Weber's lead to two, 72-70, with 35 seconds to play. That was as close as the Aggies would get. A turnover, called intentional foul on Jaycee Carroll and successful free throws by Weber State, thwarted the Aggies' chances at pulling off the comeback. "They did a nice job, they deserved to win," Morrill said. -sam.bryner@nggiemailMsu.edu Notebook Monday, Nov. 12, 2007 Kansas and Oregon get wins Sunday LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Mario Chalmers had 23 points — and two of his team's four missed dunks — and a ragged No. 4 Kansas beat a plucky Missouri-Kansas City 85-62 Sunday night. The Jayhawks (2-0) spent much of the night missing free throws and blowing assignments and led the Kangaroos (0-1) only 62-52 when Jeremiah Hartsook hit a short jumper midway through the second half. Chalmers responded by hitting an open 3-pointer, his fourth of the night. But the Kangaroos, playing their first game under new head coach Matt Brown, refused to go quietly. As the Kangaroos hung around and cut the lead to 67-55 on Dane Brumagin's 3-pointer, visions of Oral Roberts' 78-71 upset of then-No. 3 Kansas in the Jayhawks' second game last season came to mind. But Darnell Jackson made a short shot and after Chalmers missed his second dunk, Jackson hit again, and then followed Hartsook's 3-pointer with another bucket. With 4:20 left, Chalmers made a 3-pointer for a 76-58 lead, then connected again from beyond the arc. No. 12 Oregon 80, Pacific 64 EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Tajuan Porter scored 28 points and Malik Hairston added 20 points to help Oregon defeat Pacific in the World Vision Invitational tournament. Maarty Leunen had 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Bryce Taylor also scored 10 points for the Ducks (2-0). Porter went 10-for-15 from the field with five 3- pointers, while Oregon shot 48 percent from the field overall and made 10-for-21 3-pointers. Pacific (1-1) shot 43 percent from the field but only 31 percent from the 3-point line (8-for-26) and turned the ball over 17 times to the Ducks' eight. OREGON'S TAJUAN PORTER (12) shoots over Pacific's Michael Kirby (20) during the final minutes of a college basketball game in Eugene, Ore., Sunday, Nov. 11. Porter had a team-high 28 points as Oregon beat Pacific 80-64. AP Photo coach of the Billikens. Blair also grabbed a game-high eight rebounds. The Panthers (3-0) completed a sweep of three games at the Hispanic College Fund Basketball Challenge. Sam Young, the tournament's MVP, added 12 points for Pittsburgh, which hosted the fourteam, round-robin exempt tournament, played over the past three days. The Panthers, smaller and quicker this season while playing in their first season without 7-footer Aaron Gray, a second-round NBA draft pick of the Chicago Bulls, couldn't break free from Saint Louis in the first half and led 27-21 at halftime. But Pittsburgh wore down the Billikens (2-1) in the second half and built a 15-point lead before holding on to start a season 3-0 for the 10th consecutive time. No. 14 Gonzaga 77, Montana 54 By DAVID BAKER assistant sports editor So go the posts, so go the Aggies. At least that was true Saturday night againsfthe m Weber State Wildcats. Early on in the game, USD fell behind as much as seven points. The Wildcats were able to build the lead with good post play from senior Arturas Valeika and sophomore Steve Panos. Only eight minutes in, the Weber duo was outplaying Aggie big men Stephen DuCharme and Gary Wilkinson, outscoring them 9-5 and winning the rebounding battle 7-2. After a Utah State timeout at 8:52 in the first half, the USU bigs caught fire. DuCharme and Wilkinson sparked a 15-5 Aggie run that saw Utah State capture its first lead of the game, 30-29, with about 3:30 left in the half. The two posts went on to score 15 of the Aggies' last 20 points of the half. Wilkinson lead USU with 13 first-half points. DuCharme ended the half with nine points on perfect 4-of-4 shooting from the field. Things would be a little different in the second half. Valeika and Panos were a big part of the Weber State charge in the second half that erased a sevenpoint Aggie lead and gave the Wildcats a win in their season opener. Valeika, a 6-foot~9-inch center from Vilnius, Lithuania, ended the game with a double-double, 15 points and 12 boards, on 5-of-7 shooting from the field and 5-of-8 on free throw attempts. Panos added 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting. USU Head Coach Stew Morrill said the Aggie post defense "is just a sieve right now." Coupled with the poor defense, the Aggie big men disappeared in the last part of the second half. Early on, with USU still holding onto a comfortable lead, the offense was running smoothly through the posts. Although Wilkinson finished with a team-high 21 on the night, he failed to score in the last sevenplus minutes of the game, but he did record two turnovers. DuCharme also only had two points down the stretch. Each team finished with 26 points in the paint. "With us, the big thing, we hold them to 40 percent, 30 percent, whatever, we beat them outright. Defensively, we just couldn't do it," DuCharme said. FREE THROW DISPARITY Weber State shot 16 more free throws than USU. In a seven-point win, they had eight more points off of those free throws. "I'm not allowed to say anything to the media about the officiating, but the only thing I will say is the officiating didn't cost us the game," Morrill said. "Weber State kicked our butt, that's the < reality of it. To hide behind officiating, yeah they missed some calls, but we've got no business doing that. We just got our rear end kicked, the officials had nothing to do with it." Although he didn't comment on it after the r game, he was noticeably upset by several of the calls, most of all by an intentional foul call with less than a minute left in the game that gave Weber State free throws and possession back, icing the game for the Wildcats. For the first half, it didn't look like the free throw disparity would hurt the Aggies. Weber State shot only 46.2 percent from the line in the first half, ' The second half would be a different story. Weber State made 11 free throws in a row over a stretch in the second half, and finished the game 25-of-39 for 64.1 percent. "I thought it was going to cost us the game, but the kids stepped up and made them when we needed to," Weber State Head Coach Randy Rahe said. CARROLL'S NIGHT The Wildcats were able to keep a handle on senior guard Jaycee Carroll Saturday night. "(Carroll) is an absolute nightmare to prepare for," Rahe said. Whatever the preparations were, they seemed to work. Carroll ended the game with 14 points on three 3-pointers and 5-of-6 shooting from the free-throw line. He only shot 3-of-ll from the field, all of the makes coming from a 3-of-6 performance from beyond the arc. Carroll and Rahe have a unique connection. Rahe helped bring Carroll to Utah State when he was in Logan. "I love Jaycee Carroll," Rahe said. "Other than one game a year, I hope he has nothing but tremendous success." No. 2 3 Stanford 67, UC Santa Barbara 48 SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Freshman Austin Daye scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to help Gonzaga open its season by beating Montana. Gonzaga (1-0) largely smothered the Montana offense, and coach Mark Few was able to give plenty of minutes to his bench players. Montana (1-1), expected to be one of the top contenders in the Big Sky Conference, got into a hole early because of poor shooting and never threatened after that. The Bulldogs made 53 percent of their field goals and 15 of 21 free throws. Montana made just 30 percent of its shots, including 5 of 22 3pointers. Gonzaga also dominated the rebounding 4029. The Grizzlies were led by Matt Martin's 18 points. Daye, a 6-foot-10 forward from Irvine, Calif., is the son of former UCLA and NBA player Darren Daye. He made 8 of 13 field goals. No. 22 Pittsburgh 69, Saint Louis 58 PITTSBURGH (AP) — Levance Fields and freshman Dejuan Blair each scored 16 points to help Pittsburgh hand Rick Majerus his first loss as STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Anthony Goods scored 10 straight points during one first-half stretch and finished with 23, and Stanford beat UC Santa Barbara to win the Basketball Travelers Classic. Goods also grabbed six rebounds, and Robin Lopez added 12 points, two blocks and two steals for the unbeaten Cardinal, off to their first 3-0 start since beginning 26-0 in 2003-04. Santa Barbara fell to 2-1. No. 25 Kansas State 76, Pittsburg State 66 MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Michael Beasley scored 30 points, most of them during a critical second-half run, and Kansas State escaped an upset. The freshman forward also had 14 rebounds, posting his second double double in as many games. He had 32 points and a Big 12 Conference-record 24 rebounds in the Wildcats' victory over Sacramento State on Friday night. Beasley scored 16 points over the final 9 minutes Sunday, leading Kansas State (2-0) on a 26-9 spurt to close the game and avoid a loss to the Division II Gorillas. THREE GAMES, FOUR DAYS Utah State got one day of rest, Sunday, before they take the court Monday against Montana Western in a preliminary game of the South Padre Island Invitational. The Aggies look to rebound from a 1-1 opening weekend at home in the Spectrum. Even with all the sloppy play, including the 23 turnovers at Weber State Saturday night, Morrill wasn't going to punish his team with a practice on their only off day in a three-games-in-four-nights stretch. "That'd be really stupid," Morrill said of practicing on Sunday. "I'm stupid, I'm mad, but I'm not that stupid or mad. We've got three games in four days. If I go in there and just grind them down, that's not going to do us any good." Whether the Aggies are tired or not, USU senior point guard Kris Clark doesn't see it as an excuse for a lack of energy. "(The energy) has got to be there, especially coming off a loss," Clark said. "Tired or not, that's the mental part of basketball right there." Utah State's jam-packed November schedule, where the Aggies' longest break between games is only three days, also still looms for a team that Morrill said has a long way to go before they will be a very good basketball team. But with little practice time in between games, how will they improve? "We've got so many games coming up and so little time to get better, I guess we're going to have to get better playing games," Morrill said. They will have another opportunity at 7:05 Monday night in the Spectrum. o -da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu U S U H E A D C O A C H S T E W MORRILL has a heated discussion with an official Saturday night at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.The Aggies shot 16 fewer free throws than the Wildcats in their 78-71 loss to Weber State. Morrill blamed the loss on turnovers and a lack of defense, not officiating. TYLER LARSON photo |