Koby McEwen’s 26 points for Weber State set up a perfect revenge game against Utah State, his former team, but the Wildcats couldn’t hold a candle to the offensive onslaught the Aggies brought to Ogden.
USU scored a season-high 95 points, sealing a 95-80 Wednesday night victory over Weber State.
Utah State wasted no time in getting the fireworks started, engineering a 10-0 run in the first three minutes of the game. Senior Brock Miller, who made his first six shots on the night, made a three-pointer and mid-range jumper in the opening minute to secure the first five points for the Aggies.
USU sophomore guard Steven Ashworth said that run “set the tone” for the game.
After that initial run, Weber State never got closer than seven points the rest of the way despite a solid offensive night. The Wildcats were previously 6-0 when scoring at least 80 points this season, but in those contests their opponents never scored more than 74. Utah State crossed that mark with 10:08 left in the game.
Three Aggies scored at least 20 points, a season-best for head coach Ryan Odom’s squad. Steven Ashworth led the way off the bench with a career-high 27 points, followed by 20 each by Miller and Brandon Horvath. Ashworth went 7-for-11 from 3-point range, becoming just the fourth Aggie in the last decade to make seven treys in a single outing.
Horvath dominated the paint all night, adding 14 rebounds to his 20 points. And though the 6-foot-10 senior was shooting 52 percent on 3-point shots this season heading into the night, all of his points game inside the arc or at the free-throw line.
“They switched every screen and so we started rolling (Horvath) to the basket,” Odom said. “He got a couple of mismatches in there and he got free.”
“Brandon’s a huge key for us,” Ashworth said. “He’s great at reading the closeout, (knowing) whether he should shoot, whether he should drive. He was doing that at a high level tonight once again. It’s always fun playing with a guy like Brandon who can stretch the floor and also dominate down low when needed.”
At halftime, Utah State led 59-44, the 59 points being the most scored in an opening half since 2019 but Odom still had plenty to say to his team. He had nothing to critique about the offense but wanted to see more out of his defense. Weber State made 51.6 percent of its shots in the first half, including 7 of 14 threes. The 44 points allowed were the second-most USU had allowed in the first half all year (second to the 45 points allowed at BYU).
“We challenged the guys at halftime to not give them as many easy looks and force them to get a little bit later in the clock and help a little bit more and know the personnel a little bit better,” Odom said.
The defense did step up, not to an elite level, but enough to allow for an easy-going second half. The Wildcats shot just 38.7 percent in the second half overall. McEwen in particular struggled in the second despite a strong first half. Ashworth guarded McEwen for much of the game and admitted he “let McEwen get too many open looks for three” in the first half and he took it personally.
McEwen scored 19 in the first half on 6-for-8 shooting but in the second half he went 2 of 8 from the field (0-for-5 from three) for just seven points.
“I was able to do a better job defending in the second half,” Ashworth said.
McEwen, the current leading scorer for the Wildcats on the season (15.6 points per game), played his first two collegiate seasons at USU before transferring to Marquette and later Weber State. He last suited up for the Aggies five seasons ago, but there are still three players on USU’s current roster that can recall sharing the court with McEwen in Logan. Seniors Justin Bean and Miller were both freshmen in 2017-18 (McEwen’s last year with USU) and junior Trevin Dorius red-shirted with Utah State in 2016-17 before leaving on an LDS mission.
The Aggies were able to run the Wildcats out of their own building despite limited access to two of its starting players, Bean and Rylan Jones. Bean, who leads the team in scoring (21.1) and rebounding (11.6) only played 21 minutes and attempted just five shots. Jones played just 25 minutes and left the game during the second half after hitting his head on the ground. Jones had seven points and six assists in his time, Bean scored just two points and had three rebounds.
After the game, Odom said “he seems to be fine right now,” adding that they’ll have to wait and see if the injury lingers. He also said Bean had twisted his ankle, which impacted the minutes he played.
A quick turnaround awaits Utah State as it’ll travel to Sioux Falls, S.D., to face Iowa on Saturday. The Hawkeyes are 7-3 on the season. Two of those losses were to teams currently ranked in the Top 25, No. 3 Purdue (77-70) and No. 11 Iowa State (73-53).
