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No Comments [ Add Comment ]Wilkinson too much for NAIA Lights
By ROY BURTONLOGAN -- Utah State's post players shined brightest in Friday's home and season opener against the Montana State-Northern Lights.
The Aggies' interior dominance, combined with Lights-out defense, sparked Utah State to a 71-50 victory over Montana State-Northern at the Smith Spectrum.
USU (1-0) held the Lights to 38.5 percent shooting from the field and the Aggies ran their home non-conference winning streak to 54.
Utah State senior forward Gary Wilkinson, the WAC media's preseason player of the year pick, lit up the NAIA school for a career-high 24 points, hitting 10 of 11 from the field and grabbing 12 rebounds for his eighth double-double.
Wilkinson flipped a switch to score 10 of USU's final 14 points in the first half as the Aggies began to dim the Lights' chances.
"Gary had an awfully big night. They didn't have an answer for him. When we got him the ball, he just scored it," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said.
USU picked up where it left off after last season's perfect record in the Spectrum, winning its 18th straight at home.
Forward Tai Wesley had 13 points and guard Tyler Newbold added nine for USU.
Wilkinson said Friday was an improvement over USU's final exhibition game, a 74-60 win last week over Canadian school Concordia.
"(It was) a step up from Concordia," Wilkinson said. "I think one thing we learned from that is that you can't look past any team, you have to take it game by game."
Wilkinson credited Montana State-Northern's effort. The Lights are defending league champs of the NAIA's Frontier Conference, where they play Utah's Westminster College, and came into the Spectrum with a 6-0 record.
The Aggies will face stiffer competition Monday at 8 p.m. on the road against former Big West foe UC Santa Barbara.
"We've got to improve in a hurry to compete with Santa Barbara," Morrill said. "We obviously have to make some improvements in a lot of areas to be a decent Division I team. It was the first game and we played hard. I thought we defended really hard. We made some silly errors and those kinds of things are to be expected."
Redshirt freshman Jaxon Myaer, who earned his first official start at point guard for the Aggies, said he could tell Friday's game was different from exhibition play.
"The energy level was up," Myaer said. "Just the fact that it was a real game, the fact that it counts on your record, is something you've got to take into your mind."
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