Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Utah State
No. 17 Aggies Hold-off Dogs
2/12/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 12, 2011
LOGAN, Utah - Winning at the Dee Glen Spectrum on the Utah State campus is as rare as air in the mountain college town, where the No. 17 Aggies have won 81 of their last 83 games, and 31 straight in the WAC.
A young Bulldog team battled early, but a veteran USU team, led by six seniors, captured its fourth straight WAC title in a 71-55 victory over Fresno State. The Dogs and Aggies were even through the first nine minutes of the game as freshman Kevin Olekaibe scored seven of the teams' first 10 points, but was held scoreless the next 29 minutes.
The Aggies took control after that, going on a 25-5 run while knocking down over 60 percent of their shots to take a 35-15 lead over the next 10 minutes.
By halftime the Aggies' lead swelled to 40-19.
Both teams played even throughout the remainder of the game. The Dogs cut the lead to under 20 points on several occasions but got no closer than the final margin.
Senior Ned Golubovic led the Bulldogs with 15 points while freshman Bracken Funk scored 14 and led the team with six boards.
"No doubt, we ran into a very good basketball team in a tough environment," said head coach Steve Cleveland after the game. "But I couldn't be more proud of these young men for battling in the second half. We continued to attack and go after them and never backed down and that says something. We let it slip away early and just couldn't get back into it. We had some young men show a lot of pride and character."
Greg Smith, Fresno State's second leading scorer and top rebounder, had just two points and three rebounds in the game.
The Dogs return to action on Wednesday at Cal State Bakersfield at 7 p.m. PT in a non-conference game. The game can be heard live throughout the Central Valley on the Bulldogs Sports Network, KMJ 580 AM.
Bulldog Notes
- Utah State leads the all-time series between the two schools 30-18 in a series that began in 1964 with seven straight wins.
- Freshman Bracken Funk earned his first career start at the Spectrum, where his dad, Randy, was a star player for the Aggies about 20 years ago. Fresno State and Utah State were Big West rivals then. Fellow freshman Tyler Johnson started is first career game.
- The average age of the starters in the game, USU 24, Fresno State 19. The Dogs started three freshmen (Okekaibe, Tyler Johnson and Bracken Funk), one sophomore (Greg Smith) and a junior (Tim Steed). The Aggies started four seniors and one junior.
- In other WAC games Saturday night, New Mexico State (14-12, 8-4) won at La Tech (11-15, 2-10) 50-49; Nevada (9-14, 6-4) played at San Jose State (11-11, 3-8) and Idaho (14-10, 7-5) played at Boise State (13-11, 6-6) in a late games.
- Fresno State's record moved to 11-14 overall and 5-8 in the WAC and No. 17 Utah State is 23-3, 12-1 in WAC games.
"We are Your Team!" The Bulldogs play at Cal State Bakersfield on Wednesday, Feb. 16. Fresno State returns home Feb. 19 for the ESPN BracketBusters game against UC Riverside. Click the tickets icon at the top of the page for more information.
