Utah State gets past UC Irvine for 6th straight win

LOGAN — After securing a defensive rebound with 12 seconds left in Saturday night’s game against UC Irvine, Utah State’s Darius Brown II refused to listen to the Aggie fans who were begging for him to push the ball up the court in search of another basket.

Instead, the senior point guard simply dribbled the ball slowly up the sideline, grinning like crazy while joyfully waving off the fans’ request.

Brown and his teammates already had what they wanted — a 79-69 victory over the Anteaters — so he wasn’t worried about seeking another score to push USU’s total over 80 points, the requirement for fans’ to secure free frozen custard from the local Culver’s restaurant.

The hard-fought victory over the Anteaters (6-3) was the sixth in a row for the Aggies (7-1), who hadn’t played on their home court since beating Southern Utah on Nov. 14.

“Once again, I’m really proud of our guys,” USU head coach Danny Sprinkle said. “They keep finding ways. (UC Irvine is) a really good team, and I told our team that on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and today.

“I know how tough it is to beat them, and they’re not going to beat themselves. I played against those guys too many times. I know how tough and physical they are.”

Saturday was unofficially Old Rivals Night at the Spectrum, with the Aggies welcoming their old Big West Conference rival and Sprinkle getting another shot at the program he faced often as an assistant at Cal State Northridge and Cal State Fullerton.

Sprinkle also pointed out that UC Irvine head coach Russell Turner comes from the same coaching tree as former USU head coach Stew Morrill, having served as an assistant to Mike Montgomery at Stanford and with the Golden State Warriors.

But perhaps Sprinkle’s familiarity with Turner and the Anteaters’ program paid dividends for the Aggies as they put together a 13-0 run early in the second half to take control of a game that saw five ties and 14 lead changes in the first half.

“We challenged our guys at halftime, and they responded,” Sprinkle said.

After shooting 58.6% in the first half, UC Irvine’s field-goal percentage tumbled to just 35.7% in the second half, including a 1-for-6 effort from 3-point range.

Senior guard Justin Hohn, who scored 10 of UCI’s first 12 points in less than four minutes, notched just 11 points over the next 36 minutes, mostly thanks to Brown’s defensive efforts.

Conversely, Utah State’s two leading scorers, guard Mason Falslev (19 points) and forward Great Osobor (17 points), did most of their damage in the second half as the Aggies pulled away from a thin, 42-41 lead at halftime.

After getting hit hard in both eyes in USU’s win at Saint Louis on Nov. 28, Osobor was questionable Saturday due to trouble with his vision and what Sprinkle’s referred to as a “boxer’s bruise.”

“I didn’t know if Great was going to go until after shootaround today because we didn’t go live with him,” Sprinkle said of the Aggies’ leading scorer at 21.0 points per game coming into Saturday.

“But I could tell just by looking at him, and he said it was feeling better and his vision was clearing up by the hour, so we wanted to give him a chance early, and if it was bugging him, we were ready to pull him.”

After missing his first three shots and not notching his first field goal until there were just over six minutes left in the first half, Osbor, who wore protective glasses, ended up going 6 for 10 from the field and 5 for 6 from the free-throw line while playing more than 34 minutes.

Falslev, meanwhile, did a little bit of everything for the Aggies, going 8 for 12 from the floor with three 3-pointers and five scrappy rebounds.

“You can’t help but have energy when he has the ball,” Sprinkle said of Falslev. “He just gets going, and I love it.

“I don’t want to tone it down, even if he gets a little wild. I’ll take him being a little wild sometimes because when he makes a big play, it blows the roof off of this place.”

A Cache Valley native, Falslev did just that midway through the first half when, after Brown forced a loose ball on defense, he slid hard along the floor, snagged the basketball near half court and tossed it up to teammate Ian Martinez for a breakaway layup.

“Coach has been on us since the summer when a ball’s on the ground that we’re the first ones on the ground,” said Falslev, a standout basketball player and quarterback at Sky View High School in Smithfield.

“And that particular time, there was a guy coming, and I thought we were going to head butt. I was nervous, so I’m glad he stopped.”

As a team, the Aggies shot nearly 51% from the floor, including 8 of 24 from 3-point range and 11 of 15 from the free-throw line.

They also outrebounded the Anteaters — who came into the game with a rebound margin of +7.4 — 33 to 28.

Martinez and junior guard Josh Uduje both finished with 12 points for the hosts, with Martinez’s final two baskets looming large.

After leading by as many as 16 points in the second half, the Aggies’ lead was down to seven points with just over two minutes remaining.

Twice in that final two minutes, Sprinkle had Utah State spread the floor and create some room for Martinez to work, and the Costa Rica native responded with a tough layup from the right side of the basket, followed shortly by a driving layup along the left side of the lane and a score with one second left on the shot clock.

“He’s so athletic when he gets an angle to the rim,” Sprinkle said of Martinez, a transfer from Maryland (and Utah before that) who was cleared to play by the NCAA following USU’s first game of the season.

“He’s really good with the basketball. He’s so quick with his head fake. When you get him into space, which I’ve got to do more throughout our offense, he’s really dynamic and really hard to keep him in front.”