NIT loss sends Aggie men home until next year

By C. Jake Williams

March 20, 2008 | The career of one of Utah State's most talented and popular players ever, and the season for his team, ended Wednesday night with a loss at Illinois State 61-57.

Senior guard Jaycee Carroll was held to a game-high 15 points on 4-of-15 shooting, including eight of the Aggies' final nine points as USU (24-11) scrambled to erase a prolonged deficit that began with 11 minutes left in the first half and never ended. Carroll played the entire game and contributed six rebounds and five assists in his final game wearing Aggie blue.

Illinois State sophomore guard Osiris Eldridge had similar numbers to Carroll in leading the Redbirds to victory. Eldridge scored a team-high 14 points and added five boards and six assists.

The Aggies committed 12 turnovers in the first half, exceeding the Redbird game total of 11, and finished with 18 giveaways on the night.

Utah State missed its final five field-goal attempts of the game, including a 3-point try by Carroll.

Looking ahead to next season, the Aggies' future is nothing to scoff about. Two freshmen starters, guard Tyler Newbold and forward Tai Wesley, will join senior-to-be Gary Wilkinson to form the core of next year's squad.

Wilkinson and Wesley combined for eight double-doubles this season as they consistently battered opposing bigmen for layups and rebounds.

Newbold is an underrated long-range threat, and electrified the Spectrum crowd in a way surpassed only by Carroll this season whenever he found his shooting touch.

"This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end," Winston Churchill once famously said. "But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

That's exactly how Aggie fans should feel about the future of their men's basketball program under Newbold, Wesley and Wilkinson, because they have a lot of basketball left in them.

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