No such thing as an ugly road sweep

Traditional wisdom says the road trip to Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State is the toughest in the Western Athletic Conference — with a possible exception of the visit to Hawaii.

Yet Utah State made the trip and has returned win a pair of wins and a glossy 15-1 record.

Here are a few notes and details from the trip:

USU’s offense was not particularly overpowering in either game — the Aggies did score only 50 points at LaTech, after all — but the defense was more than impressive. The Bulldogs ran out of steam late in the second half and Utah State ran away with the final 13 points in the game.

At NMSU, the Aggies in blue limited the WAC’s most explosive team to just 43 percent shooting.

Gary Wilkinson stamped his name all over the front-runner spot for the conference player of the year with a pair of strong outings — at NMSU he scored 22 and grabbed a career high 14 rebounds.

What has made the Aggies run — they’ve won 10 straight games — more impressive is that they’re doing it with a shortened bench.

With Modou Niang out for a few weeks (possibly the rest of the season) with a broken hand, USU has only three experienced big men to use. Freshman Brady Jardine has had his redshirt season pulled, but he’s seeing only spot duty while the Aggies try to get him up to speed with the team.

The backup point guards, freshmen Deremy Geiger and Jaxon Myaer, likewise have seen limited action. Fortunately, juior Jared Quayle has developed quickly and has proven to be one of the more dependable points in the WAC.

If Utah State intends to protect its monstrous home win streak the Aggies might want to take care of that little turnover problem which has flared up the last two games.

While Thursday’s game against Fresno State might not be the biggest game of the year, Saturday’s matchup with Boise State is about as big as it gets this early in the season.

A few more 20-plus turnover games and the Aggies might be looking at the NIT again.