Utah State beat back challenge of North Texas at Jersey Mike Classic
ROSE HALL, St James — Utah State University scored the last 11 points of their game against a hard-fighting University of North Texas to win 68-59 and chalk up their second win in the third staging of the Jersey Mike’s Jamaica Classic Men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division One event that ended at Montego Bay Convention Centre on Sunday night.
Led by the tournament’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) Justin Bean, who recorded his second double-double of the tournament, the 15th ranked Utah State ran their overall record to 7-0, just one win short of their best start ever in nearly 60 years.
Also on Sunday, that saw possibly the biggest turn out, Nicholls State from Louisiana beat University of Marylandbaltimore County (UMBC) by 10 points (82-72).
Utah State’s Coach Craig Smith said they were ready to come back in four years, given the NCAA rules that says teams can only play in exempt tournaments once ever four years.
“I told the organisers we will be back if they will have us,” he said.
Smith said that winning the event was important as it gave his players confidence.
“Players can play for four years and never get the opportunity to play for a championship, whether it’s a conference tournament or one like this and we were fired up for this opportunity. It’s always easy to say it when you win, but I told the staff and players, this tournament has been outstanding, the country of Jamaica has been absolutely amazing, the hospitality and how people have treated us, very friendly, great vibe and great spirit,” he said.
The level of his team’s performance, Smith said, was outstanding.
“We beat two good teams and that LSU [Louisiana State Unoiversity] game (on Friday) was incredibly and I knew the second the schedule came out that this game tonight would be a difficult game, it’s easy to look at record, but that was such an emotional game,” Smith noted.
Playing two tough games on the weekend and playing a limited number of players in their two-point win over LSU, coming from 19 points down in the second half, took its toll on the players.
“We had some tired players tonight (Sunday), but we had to challenge them mentally, I don’t care how tired and banged up you are, you gotta have the mental toughness and mental fortitude to will yourself to be the best you can be and we did that tonight,” said Smith.
The wins, he said, would help them as the league portion of the season approaches.
“We saw two different styles of play, two teams that were clearly more athletic than us and they got after us and it took time to adjust to that, but that is what great teams and great players do, we are not great yet but we are a good shooting team...tonight a lot of stuff did not go for us but at the end of the day we hung in there and we were able to pull it out the last few minutes,” Smith reasoned.
North Texas, who were beaten by Rhode Island on Friday, took the game to Utah State and there were 12 ties and 17 lead changes in the contest, with North Texas having their biggest lead – a five points advantage in the second half after leading by one point (30-29) at the half-time break.
North Texas led by two points (59-57) with four minutes and 11 seconds to go as Alphonso Anderson, who led the Utah State scoring, scored 10 of his 19 points down the stretch as North Texas missed their last seven shots.
Bean had 14 points and 13 rebounds, while Diogo Brito scored 15 points and Utah State still managed to win despite star player Sam Merrill failing to make a jump shot, with all his five points coming from the free throw line.
Umoja Gibson scored 19 points for North Texas, Deng Geu scored 18 and Javion Hamlet had eight points as the ‘Mean Green’ lost five of their last six games.
In the final game, Nicholl State beat UMBC by 10 points after leading 50-33 at half-time as Dexter Mcclanahan scored a game-high 26 points, Warith Alatishe had a double-double 11 points and 11 rebounds, Elvis Harvey scored 17 points, Lorenzo Mcghee scored 13 points and D’angelo Hunter scored 10 points.
Darnell Rogers, who was generously listed as five feet two inches, led UMBC with 23 points, including seven from three-point range, every one cheered on by the large crowd. KJ Jackson scored 19 points.