Logan • Brock Miller had 25 points as Utah State won its eighth consecutive home game, romping past Eastern Oregon 129-61 on Saturday.
Kuba Karwowski had 16 points and four assists for Utah State (13-2). Justin Bean added 16 points and 12 rebounds. Alphonso Anderson had 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists for the hosts.
Utah State coach Craig Smith said that there was no chance the Aggies would overlook the visitors, not with the conference portion of the schedule just around the corner.
“Our guys showed a lot of maturity in our preparation for these guys. I love how we played,” said Smith. “I thought we really shared the ball. It’s amazing how that works, when you share the ball how all of a sudden you start shooting the ball a lot better. I’m not saying we were selfish before, but you can see our offense really starting to gain some momentum here the last three or four games.”
He added: “We finish non-conference play 11-2. I thought we handled our business, we traveled all over the place; feels like we haven’t played [in the Spectrum] in a long time. It was good to be back home. Now we get back to league play, it’s a great time of year, it’s an exciting time of year and we’re going to have to play well to win at UNLV.”
The Aggies play the Rebels at the Thomas and Mack Center on Wednesday.
Saturday marked the first time this season Utah State scored at least 100 points. The Aggies also posted a season-high 36 assists. Defensively, USU forced a season-high 22 turnovers.
“The biggest thing for our team is no matter who you play, or the competition, you just play the game the right way and get everyone involved,” said Aggie senior forward Roche Grootfaam "We did a good job with that. I was just told that we set a school record with 36 assists in a game, that’s big time. It shows that our team is unselfish, and we get everybody involved.”
Utah State scored 66 first-half points, a season high for the team.
Jarek Schetzle had 13 points for the Mountaineers. Max McCullough added 12 points. He also had seven turnovers but only two assists. Jamal Heckard had six assists.
