Aggies Nearly Knock Off Houston, Fall Down The Stretch

Dec 20, 2018, 8:07 PM | Updated: 8:42 pm

KSL Sports

HOUSTON, Texas – The Utah State Aggies hung tough with the undefeated No. 21-ranked Houston Cougars in a 60-50 loss.

Aggies come up just short on the road to #21 Houston. #AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/YCFGuwLUQP

— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) December 21, 2018

The Aggies held a 10-point advantage with a 31-21 lead at halftime. Unfortunatley for the Aggies, the Cougars flexed their undefeated muscles and quickly erased the deficit in the second half with a 13-3 run to catch Utah State and tie the game at 34-all.

🎶 Draped up and dripped out 🎶@DwaynebrownJr2 with 15 points and 5 rebounds in the first half.#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/CI8wy67R5W

— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) December 21, 2018

Houston’s Armoni Brooks then drained a 3-pointer to give the Cougars the lead at 37-34.

The Aggies countered with a couple of buckets to take a 39-37 lead, but Houston would quickly retake the lead and not look back on the way to the victory.

.@Bsmoov_22 gets the lead back with a 3!#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/tI6N3h2gGd

— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) December 21, 2018

“They came out of the break and had their defensive intensity up and we knew they were going to do that,” said Aggie guard Quinn Taylor. “We got pretty stagnant on offense and just kind of picked up the pressure. We were looking like the first half of the BYU game where our offense wasn’t flowing well. They’re a great team and we knew they were going to play hard. They weren’t going to quit and we just turned the ball over way too much.”

By The Numbers

Utah State’s Dwayne Brown Jr. came off the bench and had a game-high 19 points on 8-for-14 shooting.

Taylor was the only other Aggie in double-figure scoring with 15 points.

Brooks led the Cougars with 15 points.

Both teams had a horrid time shooting the ball. Houston shot just 31.7 percent from the field in the win while Utah State made 36.7 percent of its shots. The difference was that Houston took 14 more shots than the Aggies due to a large discrepancies in offensive rebounding and turnovers.