Nov. 10, 2001
Final Stats
LOGAN, Utah - Michael Nurse scored all of his 15 points in the second half, including 13 in the game's final 10:33, to lead Next Level Sports to a come-from-behind 72-67 victory against Utah State in exhibition basketball here on Saturday afternoon.
The Aggies held their biggest lead of the game at 56-41 with 11:50 left after Desmond Penigar's three-pointer, but Next Level went on a 17-3 run in the next five minutes to pull within one point (59-58) and took the lead for good at 66-65 with 1:31 left in the game.
"We played pretty good to get up by 15 points and then we just give the game away," said USU head coach Stew Morrill. "That is a result of our inexperience and we do not have guys that have been down this road before. It is going to take some time and as always in sports there are no guarantees that you are going to have a good team. You have to pull together, you have to do the things it takes. Right now we are not very good defensively, we turn the ball over way too much. Yet still we are up 15 and we give the game away. We had a series of bad plays where we turned the ball over and we took some bad shots."
Utah State was led by Tony Brown, who scored a game-high 19 points, while Penigar added 15 points and a game-high eight rebounds. USU point guard Ronnie Ross scored 14 points. Next Level was led by former USU player Shawn Daniels, who had 17 points and eight rebounds.
"I have never played in a better environment than the Spectrum," Daniels said. "When you get to come back and have the people cheering for you it is a great feeling."
Two other former USU players suited up for Next Level Sports including Kevin Rice, who had six points and Marcus Saxon, who did not score, but added three assists in 14 minutes while nursing a back injury.
Utah State led 41-31 at halftime behind 57.7 percent shooting from the field. However, the Aggies cooled off in the second half, hitting just 24.1 percent to finish the game at 40.0 percent. Utah State made 22 field goals and committed 21 turnovers in the game.
The Aggies finished the exhibition season with a 1-1 record and will open the regular season at Montana State on Saturday, Nov. 17. Next Level improved to 3-5 and will play three more games, including Sunday night at Oregon.
"Utah State is as far along as any other program that we have played," said Next Level Sports Head Coach. They run their stuff and got a lot of open looks. They play as hard as anybody."
