Playing the Utah State Aggies in their home arena, the Dee Glenn Smith Spectrum, is a hard enough task as it is during the midst of Mountain West conference play in January or February. Tack on the fact that the Cowboys are set to play there on December 4, just a short month into a season that has already been up and down for a Cowboy team still in search of their identity, and you likely have a recipe for the most challenging game the Cowboys have had up to date.
“We’re still searching for our identity,” head coach Sundance Wicks said in a press conference on Monday.
This Cowboys’ team is going to have to find themselves, and fast, if they want to open up league play with a 1-0 start. The Aggies, who are currently on their fourth head coach in the last five years, are off to the best start in the Mountain West with an unbeaten record of 7-0. The Aggies have also dominated the Cowboys in recent history, winning eight of the last 10 matchups and have beaten the Cowboys in the last four meetings between both schools.
With their current 7-0 mark, it won’t be any easier than it has in recent history for the Cowboys to find a win over the Aggies, especially with the Aggies’ talented backcourt. The guard duo of Ian Martinez and Mason Falslev have combined to score over a third of the points for the Aggies this season, and both are currently shooting over 40% from beyond the arc, as Falslev is even shooting as well as 56% from deep. However, as a team, the Aggies are only shooting around 37%.
MASON FALSLEV. FOUR-POINT PLAY.
— USU Men's Hoops (@USUBasketball) November 30, 2024
He's got a career-high 26 points!#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/3T9GwlbJnv
“For us, we have to continue to defend the line, especially on their home court. We can’t let them have threes, if they want to beat us…we’re going to allow them to beat us with twos, but we have to defend the three point line,” Wicks said.
“Martinez and Falslev are extremely dynamic, I’ve watched enough games on them to know, those guys, nobody shuts their water off, right? So, you got to make it a long night for them,” he added.
The Cowboys will have to get off to a much better start than they have in their last two outings in Cancun if they don’t want this game to spiral out of control quickly. While the Cowboys were able to comeback from 16-point deficits in both their matchups in the Cancun Challenge, it will be much harder to comeback from that kind of deficit with the raucous crowd that will certainly be in attendance at the Spectrum.
“I don’t want to be, you know, curb stomped in the first half and try to fight your way back blind and bloody,” Wicks said.
Ultimately, for the Cowboys, this game will prove to be a marker of whether or not they truly are prepared for conference play. If there ever was a way to prove that, it would be on the road at the team who currently holds the best record in the conference. Analytically, the Cowboys may have little chance of winning this game–but when it comes to Wicks’ “manalytics,” or the factors in a game that can’t be measured by numbers, like his teams’ resilience and toughness, Wicks gives his team a shot with any team in the nation, regardless of the what the numbers say.
“It’s a miracle, right now, that we’re at 5-2 to be honest with you. We’re an analytical nightmare in a lot of ways,” Wicks said.
Bang x2 pic.twitter.com/IDpD4or01i
— Wyoming Cowboy Basketball (@wyo_mbb) November 27, 2024
The analytics that likely give Wicks nightmares is the fact that his team ranks in the 300s nationally in three-point percentage, assist-to-turnover ratio and free throw percentage, just to name a few. In a lot of cases, those numbers ranking so poorly in those three categories leads to more losses than wins. However, for this Cowboys’ team, their manalytics have proved to be the winning factor in the wins they have collected this season.
“Our manalytics are pretty good right now. We’re tough, we’re gritty, we’re resilient. We’re finding ways to come back from 16 points down.”
If the Cowboys are to beat the Aggies in Logan, it likely won’t be because they shoot the ball better than the Aggies or because they turn the ball over less than the Aggies. While those things may and can happen, a win on Wednesday will likely ultimately come because the Pokes were the tougher, more resilient group in their first Mountain West matchup.
