Why play Utah Valley and Southern Utah?

Isn’t Utah State — a team that not unfrequently finds itself in the Top 25 polls — a program that should be able to flex its muscle enough to not ‘lower the bar’ and play programs such as Southern Utah and Utah Valley? Especially on the road?

Not if you ask Stew Morrill, who has been trying to get schools to play in Logan for years without much success.

While SUU and UVU might not ever see the likes of BYU or Utah on their home courts, Utah State has decided if it can’t get home-and-home series scheduled with more high-profile opponents, it might as well take its show on the road a little closer to home.

Saturday, Utah Valley visits the Spectrum. Earlier, it was Southern Utah.

The Aggies played in Orem and Cedar City a year ago — something the Utes and Cougars have yet to do.

“Utah Valley is tough circumstances having just gone to Division I. Certain schools won’t play them,” Morrill said. “It is tough circumstances and I have a lot of respect for what Dick (Hunsaker) has done there.”

Though the Aggies take a hit on schedule strength — not to mention being skewered by local talk-show hosts — by playing against UVU or SUU instead of scheduling road-only games against Pac-10 or WCC foes, Morrill sees benefit in the games even if they come with an RPI or strength of schedule risk.

“The perception is you are just supposed to beat those guys. I have never felt that way. I knew every time that we play them we would have a good basketball game,” Morrill said. “Then if you go and decide to play them on their court anything can happen. You have to deal with that mentally as a coach. I think some coaches don’t want to play teams when everybody says you are supposed to beat them. We play them. They are close and they are Division I. It makes sense to me. But there is that feeling going into the game that this isn’t as easy as people think it is. Utah Valley and Southern Utah are well coached and have good players. That becomes a dilemma for teams that are deciding whether or not to play them.”

So why play home-and-home games with SUU instead of a similar team from out of the region?

“We have had a hard time finding teams that would play us home and home. What started all this is we couldn’t find enough games and we were going to play IUPUI and Jackson State. We spent a lot of money traveling lots of miles. Southern Utah and Utah Valley are Division I, why not just play them. It weighs on me playing them,” Morrill said. “Everyone thinks we are just supposed to win. BYU and Utah don’t want to play them home and home, which we have done. I have been very pleased that we have been able to win those games, especially on their court. I am not saying we are going to play them forever, right now we are and we will see.”

So, while some Aggie fans might think USU is hurting itself by playing teams with RPIs close to 300 than 100, it’s probably not going to change any time soon.

And if USU is going to fill its December with such opponents, and include road games in the process, it might was well be against opponents that have at least a small degree of local interest and are also relatively easy drives for those fans that want to take in a road game. Cedar City is a lot closer than Fort Wayne, Indiana, after all.