Purdue Fort Wayne
Utah State
Carroll's 29 Points Denies IPFW's Comeback
12/22/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2006
Logan, UT -Utah State junior guard Jaycee Carroll is ranked 12th in the nation in scoring at 22.0 points per game. Carroll proved to be as good as advertised, scoring a game-high 29 points as Utah State topped IPFW 77-63, Thursday night at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
Not many teams have success at the Spectrum. In fact, Utah State's non-conference home winning streak stood at 41 straight games as the Aggies raced out to a 19-5 lead early in the game.
A three-pointer by Carroll at the 6:43 mark pushed the Utah State lead to 20 at 32-12.
But, from the 2:31 mark on, IPFW caught fire. Junior forward Pat Lepper came down and banged home two triples, junior forward Zeljko Egeric bagged a three-ball of his own, and junior guard Demetrius Johnson got a layup to go as an 11-0 run cut the Aggies lead to just nine at the half, 40-31.
The 'Dons came out in the second half and cut the Aggie lead to six on an old-fashioned three-point play by Egeric.
At the 15:17 mark, senior forward Tyler Best scored inside getting IPFW to within just four points at 45-41.
USU pushed the lead back to eight on a jumper by senior forward Chaz Spiecer.
Trailing by nine with just over 11-minutes to play, junior forward Jaraun Burrows got loose for a pair of buckets inside to cut the Aggie margin to five at 53-48.
However, that's as close as the 'Dons would get down the stretch because Utah State began to light it up from the outside.
The Aggies hit three of their five triples late in the game to pull away to the 14-point win, USU's 42nd consecutive in home non-conference action.
Carroll was the difference in this one, dropping 4-7 from behind the arc and sinking 7-8 from the charity stripe as part of his 29 point effort.
Junior forward Stephen DuCharme contributed a double-double (13/10) for Utah State, who improved to 9-2.
The Mastodons were led by Burrows who came off the bench to toss in a career-high 17 points. "Keno" also had seven rebounds and three steals.
Egeric was the only other Mastodon in double-figures with 11 points.
IPFW falls to 4-9 on the campaign and will be off until New Year's Eve day, traveling to Eastern Michigan for a 2:00pm tip-off with the Eagles.
~Dons~
