Utah State women's basketball hopes to start strong against Idaho State

By Ashley Springer

The Utah State University women’s basketball team is looking to start off strong when it takes on Idaho State University on the road on Tuesday.

USU has started off behind in the first quarter in both of its road games this season with losses to the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday and Brigham Young University on Nov. 24. Against Northern Colorado, the USU Aggies were behind 26-20 at the end of the first quarter and lost 74-60. Against BYU, the Aggies were behind 27-18 at the end of the first quarter and lost 81-69.

“Good teams set the tone early and establish their routine and their rhythm,” said USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “That’s just a good thing for any team to start off strong, set the tone.”

Finkbeiner said it’s important the team doesn’t dig a hole for itself like it did against Northern Colorado.

“Our last away game we dug a hole early, spent a lot of energy catching up, finally went ahead and then just fell flat,” Finkbeiner said. “So we just got to be consistent, start well.”

Against Northern Colorado, the Aggies were behind 44-31 at the half, but held the Bears to four points in the third quarter to take the 51-48 lead. However, in the fourth quarter, the Aggies were outscored 26-9 and Northern Colorado took the win.

“We need to have the energy from the beginning,” senior forward Tijana Djukic said. “So as soon as the ball is on the court, we need to execute well and have effort and just play the best we can.”

Finkbeiner said in order to start off well, the best shooters need to have more opportunities early on to score and the best rebounders need to rebound the ball.

“I always use the phrase: ‘Let’s have no surprises,’” Finkbeiner said. “Being predictable with no surprises is big because that represents consistency and a little bit of stableness to us.”

Additional focuses for Tuesday’s game, Finkbeiner said, will be the Aggies’ man-to-man offense and defending Idaho State’s screens and cuts.

Djukic said her main goal for the game is simply “to win.”

“We got to worry more about ourselves,” Finkbeiner said. “We have to execute… It’s going to be a well contested game, it’s going to be very competitive and our girls have to be on.”

Utah State defense improves against Haskell

By Ashley Springer

Defense was key going into Friday's game. 

The Utah State University women’s basketball team knew it and did it as the USU Aggies won 90-63 against Haskell Indian Nations University, the Aggies second non-Division I opponent, on Friday night.

The Aggies held Haskell to just 35 points during the first three quarters of the game with Haskell only scoring eight points during the third.

“One of our main focuses was our defense,” said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We look towards that when conference time comes because we’re a transition team and that really allows us to transition the ball.”

The Aggies had 20 fast-break points on the night compared to Haskell’s zero and had 28 points off of Haskell’s 22 turnovers.

“We need to keep the energy on defense… because it makes it so much easier on offense for us,” Nakkasoglu said.

According to USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner, one of the areas the Aggies struggled during Tuesday’s game against the University of Northern Colorado was defending the off-the-ball cutter.

Against Haskell, the Aggies got into the passing lane to disrupt passes by either by deflecting the ball or getting the steal. The Aggies had 17 steals on the night, 16 of which came during the first three quarters.

“We’re stepping off a bit more and kind of putting our numbers to the ball so they don’t look to drive as much, and when they cut, jump to the ball and do all the fundamental things to minimize them cutting over us and getting easy baskets from their cuts,” Nakkasoglu said.

“We’re trying to get the ‘A-word’ involved in our game: aggressiveness,” Finkbeiner said. “Both going to the hoop offensively and then looking for steals. That spread zone… we call ‘The Twilight Zone,’ we want to go for steals, we want to go for deflections. It’s a high-risk, high-reward and we’re trying to sell that to the girls. And tonight was the first time I’ve seen our ‘Twilight Zone’ begin to kind of look like it’s supposed to look, you know, go for those long passes, get the hands on the basketball and create some deflections, create some steals.”

Freshman guard Rachel Brewster is the defensive captain for the Aggies.

“We’ve spoken a lot with the team about talking... so that was a big thing tonight,” Brewster said. "And I think what’s good tonight we were able to... be more aggressive. And we got to see what happens when we do get up and get the steals, so hopefully we can transfer that to our other games.”

The Aggies also recorded six blocks on the night behind senior forward Tijana Djukic’s three.

“I think it was better,” Nakkasoglu said about the defense. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement… We have to bring this energy and we have to bring this execution of our defense every single game. We can’t be too happy with this; we just need to keep going up from here.”

The Aggies hope to use this experience when facing future Division I opponents.

“We just look at what we did well and have to go if we keep doing that and we keep building on that when we move into the next games, then it’ll work out,” Brewster said.

Utah State gets big win over Haskell

By Ashley Springer

The Utah State University women’s basketball team won 90-63 tonight against its second non-Division I opponent, Haskell Indian Nations University.

The game was close throughout the first quarter with the score tied at 15 with just under a minute to go. Sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu then made two free throws followed by two layups to give the USU Aggies a 21-15 lead going into the second quarter. The Aggies maintained the lead from then on with the largest lead being 41 at the end of the third quarter.

“We needed this game,” said USU coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “Two of the three games we’ve lost were teams just like this… small, lots of threes… More importantly we needed this game just to get back on a winning track, trying to create some momentum.”

The Aggies shot at 50 percent on the night behind Nakkasoglu’s 27 points. Senior forward Tijana Djukic had a career high of 19 points and freshman guard Rachel Brewster had 17.

Brewster said she was kind of shocked about her shooting average as she shot 5-8 from the floor, including 3-4 from behind the arc.

“Lately I haven’t really had a very good shooting percentage,” Brewster said. “My shots went in so I just kept taking them.”

Nakkasoglu gave credit to Djukic for running down the middle of the lane and getting open.

“She was just easy to give it up to,” Nakkasoglu said. “She was right under the basket… she was out in front of me and it made things easier for me, it made things easier for everyone else because she really opened up the floor.”

Nakkasoglu led the team with nine assists to tie her career high.

“We are trying to take advantage, obviously, of our tall girls because they were a shorter team,” Nakkasoglu said. “I am looking to dish it off. A lot of players are going to start collapsing on me because they know I might drive.”

The Aggies had 50 points in the paint and 20 fast-break points on the night.

“That’s what we’re working towards,” Nakkasoglu said. “We’re going to keep trying to build on that. We need to kind of average that every single game from here on.”

The Aggies were led by freshman center Deja Mason’s nine rebounds, Djukic’s three blocks and both Brewster and junior forward Antoina Robinson’s four steals. The team had a total of 17 steals on the night.

Haskell was led by senior guard Arnetia Begay’s 17 points, four assists and one block. Junior center Keli Warrior also contributed one block, junior guard Kortney Meat led with five rebounds and freshman guard Ember Sloan led with three steals.

The win brought the Aggies to a 3-3 record.

“I think as a whole our freshmen class is starting to kind of get some juice going and starting to get some confidence and having some fun out there,” Finkbeiner said. “I think we played well enough to win a couple of the games we lost this year.”

Utah State women's basketball team hopes to grow from first road game experiences

By Ashley Springer


The young Utah State University women's basketball team isn't quite used to the traveling that comes with road games.

The USU Aggies’ two road games thus far in the season have consisted of an 81-69 loss to Brigham Young University on Nov. 24 and a 74-60 loss to the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday. 

According to USU freshman center Deja Mason, the biggest challenge that came with the road games was the traveling led to a lack of energy on the floor.

“In the game, we just kind of felt not as intense as we could have been at home,” Mason said. “We just had to work on the intensity that we didn’t really have.”

Although the Aggies faced BYU first, USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner considered the Northern Colorado game to be the young team’s first real road game as it was the first game the team had flown to and stayed overnight.

USU’s 15-woman roster is two-thirds underclassmen with seven freshmen and three sophomores.

“It’s all about… experience,” Finkbeiner said. "Half our team — that was their first real road trip."

“We can’t use that as an excuse," said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We've got so many freshmen, but our coaches have recruited them because they feel that a lot of them can step up and play older than they are.”

Finkbeiner said some of the struggles the team faces on the road can't be practiced, such as packing luggage, traveling, the meals, the itinerary as well as the aspects that cannot be controlled like a late plane or a late bus.

"All of those things are just new and I think veteran teams have a big advantage... on the road because you can't duplicate, you can't practice it, you just have to experience it," Finkbeiner said.

“Of course everyone’s adjusting to the road games,” Nakkasoglu said. "We're going to get better as we go through the season in road games because people are going to have experienced it and they're going to know what it's like and they're going to be more comfortable playing in other gyms against other teams away from our home court.” 

According to Mason, getting used to the traveling as well as bringing energy to the games will be important in the future.

The Aggies will have two road games next week against Idaho State University on Tuesday and Utah Valley University on Dec. 10, but Finkbeiner considers the next true road trip to be the Lady Griz Classic in Missoula, Montana on Dec. 19 and 20.

"I just have a strong assumption because of this experience against Northern Colorado, there will be fewer surprises and more known things to happen and hopefully that will transfer over to the floor being more consistent and more focused and ready to play," Finkbeiner said.

“We kind of learned from this last experience how to do better in future road games,” Mason said.

The Aggies are currently 2-3 on the season. Finkbeiner, Mason and Nakkasoglu said the goal is to win at least half of the road games as well as the majority of home games.

“Since we already lost these two, these next few games are really important,” Mason said. “Good teams are much better when you win half of your away games.”

"If we do that, then we'll be in good shape come February, March," Finkbeiner said.

Utah State women's basketball to focus on defense

By Ashley Springer

Utah State University's women’s basketball is hoping to bounce back from Tuesday’s 74-60 loss to the University of Northern Colorado by defending better in Friday’s game against Haskell Indian Nations University.

“We definitely need to pick up our defense,” said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “It was very poor against Northern Colorado.”

“We came up short last night because our defense let us down in a few situations,” said USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner about Tuesday’s loss.

In particular, Finkbeiner said, the Aggies the failed to adequately defend the off-the-ball cutter — players who don’t have the ball but cut to get the pass and score.

“Last night we got beat by individual players beating us to the basket off of cuts, so our help-side defense will be a key,” Finkbeiner said. “It’s more about team defense, helping on the pass, helping on the dribble and making more of a dent.”

“We need to take more pride… in every defensive stop,” Nakkasoglu said. “And knowing what defensive play that we’re in and being more verbal on the court so everyone knows what’s going on.”

Today was the team’s off-day, so Thursday will be the only day the Aggies have to prepare for Friday’s game, which will be held at 7 p.m. at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum

“We’re going to put most of our thought and our practice and our planning time into defensively being more consistent,” Finkbeiner said on the focus of Thursday’s practice. “It’ll all be about defense and rebounding.”

Finkbeiner also plans to throw in defensive situations in practice such as diving on the floor for the basketball without getting injured and drawing the offensive charge.

Both Finkbeiner and Nakkasoglu noted that defense leads to offense.

“The whole team has realized that,” Nakkasoglu said. “That’s what gave us success in the Pacific game… But… in our BYU game and our Northern Colorado game and even our Sacramento State game that we lost, it was mostly our defense which affected our offense in the end… Once we get stops and steals in the defensive end, it’s easier to fall into our offensive game.”