Utah State Defeats UC Irvine : Newey’s 4 Straight 3-Pointers Start Rout of Anteaters

UC Irvine’s basketball team made the 2-hour flight from San Jose to Salt Lake City Sunday and then took a 2-hour bus trip up to Logan, home of Utah State University.

Seems like a long trip for a 5-minute game.

Utah State’s Reid Newey made four consecutive 3-pointers in the first 5:13 of play Monday night, giving the Aggies a 19-6 lead and Irvine never got closer than 10 points before losing, 104-71, in front of 9,948 at the Spectrum.

Irvine is starting the Big West Conference season in much the same way it begins most games: by digging itself into a deep hole. The Anteaters are 1-3 in conference play and 4-9 overall. Utah State, after stumbling to a 1-6 start, has recovered to gain a 4-2 Big West mark and a 6-9 overall record.

The Aggies have won 4 of their last 5 games, but none of them were settled this quickly. Newey finished with a school-record seven 3-pointers and a game-high 26 points.

This one was mostly Aggie showtime after Newey shot down the Anteaters in the early going.

“Yeah, we got it going pretty good,” said Newey, who wanted to talk about his underhand alley-oop pass to Kendall Youngblood for a dunk more than his outside shooting. “It’s really fun when you get way up like that and can spread it out and, well, just have fun.”

That’s not the way the Anteaters saw it.

“We didn’t shoot well, from the field or at the (free-throw) line,” said Irvine’s Kevin Floyd, who picked up 3 quick fouls and was held to a season-low 7 points. “We didn’t rebound or block out. We weren’t aggressive. We were flat.”

That about sums it up. Irvine shot 38% from the floor, and Utah State shot 51%. At halftime, Irvine had made just 6 of 13 layups and only 4 of 17 non-layups. And the Aggies outrebounded the Anteaters, 47-32, for the game.

But Newey’s performance made the biggest impression.

Irvine forward Ricky Butler, who scored 12 points, thought Newey’s early 3-pointers were even more devastating because three of them came from at least a yard beyond the 3-point stripe and one was about a 28-footer.

“He shot those things from Never-Never Land,” Butler said, shaking his head in awe. “His confidence was way up, and their whole team’s confidence was way up because he’s their leader.”

The Anteaters, coming off a victory over San Jose State Saturday night, seemed to be taking on water faster than they can bail.

“What do you guys suggest I do?” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan asked reporters after leaving the locker room. “Why won’t we block out? Why won’t we go inside? Why are we so impatient? Why are we so selfish?

“We seemed to have those things straightened out against San Jose . . . now this. I mean, I’m not taking anything away from Utah State. They played magnificently. Newey pounds the four 3-pointers out of the chute and they’re off.”

First-year Coach Kohn Smith said the game was the Aggies’ “best night offensively” and credited Youngblood, who scored a career-high 18 points, for his defensive play guarding Floyd.

“Of course,” he said, “when you get a shooting performance like that from Newey, it helps.”