Sam Merrill practically walked the ball up the left side of the court before he decided to make a move. The Utah State men’s basketball team led by nine against Fresno State on Saturday, and the senior guard had designs on increasing that number.
Merrill took one dribble to his left between his legs and made a 3-pointer from well beyond the arc — a sequence he performed so calmly he may as well have been throwing crumpled paper into a nearby trash can.
That shot was a microcosm of a stretch of games in which Merrill has picked up his play. He’s scoring more, shooting more efficiently, moving with grace and flow within the Aggies offense. In short, Merrill is simply in a good rhythm, and it’s helped Utah State to four consecutive wins and seven in its past eight games.
“I think I hit a point where I needed to stop worrying about my health or things that I felt weren’t going my way and I just need[ed] to focus on just playing and trying to be the best that I can be and playing with the confidence that I know I have,” Merrill said. “From that point, when I decided to make that change and focus on playing and being the best that I can be, I’ve been much, much better.”
Merrill’s had an up-and-down year in terms of health. He, along with several of his teammates, struggled with illness earlier in the season. He also has been dealing with an ankle injury.
Coach Craig Smith said Merrill is finally 100 percent healthy for the first time since maybe the first six games of the season. Smith said he had Merrill skip five days of practice during the team’s “bye week” recently, which aided in getting him healthy.
In addition to that, he thinks the fact that Merrill is a senior has contributed to his heightened production of late.
“They know it’s the end of their career and they don’t know what’s coming next,” Smith said of how seniors play down the stretch of a season.
Lately, Merrill has felt more like himself. He has shot over 50% from the field in five of the past seven games. In last week’s win over Colorado State, he scored 32 points, the second time this season he’s scored more than 30.
Merrill was named the Mountain West Conference Player of the Week for his two performances last week, where he scored 56 points on 61% shooting and had nine assists. Both those games helped put the Aggies in sole possession of second place in the conference.
Junior guard Abel Porter, who is Merrill’s best friend on the team, thinks Merrill is on an upswing because of how much the last few games have meant in the conference standings.
“Sam’s always been a gamer and I know that he kind of feels like these games are really important,” Porter said. “And so as he’s felt more pressure, I think that he kind of thrives under that.”
Merrill is considered the best player on the Aggies. “As Merrill goes, we go” could be the team’s slogan. And what’s perhaps most indicative of Merrill’s role is the number of minutes he plays on a night-to-night basis.
Merrill is averaging 34.9 minutes per game in 2019-20, which is actually down compared to his previous two seasons (35.3 MPG in 2018-19 and 35.4 MG in 2017-18). He played all 40 against Fresno State and his played nearly 40 for most of the season. The fewest minutes he’s played is 23 against Boise State two weeks ago, and that was only because he struggled with foul trouble.
Merrill’s minutes mean that much more because of how much he expects of himself when he’s on the court.
“I know going into every game I’m going to be playing 37 to 40 minutes, so I have to be at my best,” Merrill said. “And if I’m not, then that’ll hurt the team. So it’s definitely something that’s on my mind.”
It’s rare nowadays that Merrill sits on the bench. He’s been playing 30-plus minutes since his freshman year. He said coach Craig Smith used to sit him in the first half, but now just relies on him to say when he needs a rest.
“Most of the time I just shake him off,” Merrill said.
Smith recalled that in his first game as USU’s coach, he subbed Merrill out four times. Merrill, Smith said, reminded him of how many minutes he averaged the season prior when he was subbed out the fourth time.
“That was good that he said that because everybody handles fatigue a little bit differently,” Smith said. “That was a learning curve for me as to maybe he looks tired, but he’s OK. So we just built our relationship in a very trustworthy way.”
But when Merrill does take a rest, or has foul trouble, or even fouls out of a game, it affects USU’s play. Porter said the biggest impact comes at the end of offensive possessions when the shot clock is winding down. That’s usually a situation where the ball goes to Merrill so he can make a play. If he’s not out there, the Aggies have to do more hunting for the best shot.
And while the general system doesn’t change when Merrill is off the court, Utah State’s style somewhat does.
“When he is off the court, a lot of the focus just becomes more of free-flowing offense,” Porter said. “We might run less sets and just try and get everyone involved.”
Merrill credited Smith and the rest of the coaching staff for having trust in the rest of the roster when he does manage to ask for a breather. And there have been times this season when Merrill was on the bench and his teammates played well and even won games without him.
But Porter didn’t go as far as to say that the team “relies” on Merrill to constantly be available.
“While it’s nice to have him on your team, I think that it’s not as much as we ‘rely’ on him,” Porter said. “It’s just that he makes us that much better and he lifts our ceiling so much more when he is on the court.”
