End of the regular season: Links and quotes

Well now that I'm not busy writing a new issue every night this blog might actually get updated... ah who am I kidding probably not.

Either way here is a completely self-serving list of quotes and links to things written about us or the Aggies that I wanted to have saved in one place. Enjoy reading about me

Reno Gazette Journal
http://www.rgj.com/article/20090127/SPORTS06/901270349
Chris Murray of the RGJ with quotes from Faf and I about the Aggies
Pack Basketball: Aggie faithful will put Pack on hot seat
Utah State's 11-0 home record traced partly to fans

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/sports/ncaabasketball/21utah.html?pagewanted=all
"Home to Utah State, this postcard city of nearly 50,000 boasts a coach who wins as consistently as anyone in college basketball, a hornet’s nest of a student section"
and
"The student section consists of about 4,000 fans and wraps from baseline to sideline in the shape of an L. Students print an often-hilarious newsletter “The Refraction” for organized heckling, billing it as an “independent and satirical publication"

Sports Illustrated
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1151776/index.htm
"THE UTAH STATE student rooting section, a mob of 4,000 blue-clad fans armed with sheets of opposition research for organized taunting, considers itself an integral part of its team's success"

Parsing The Wac
Sending some help to the Refraction-ers
More on The Spectrum reception committee
Has there ever been a better endorsement?
Utah State - BYU brings out the $#%&$#
The 'gangstas' -- if you will -- of the WAC

ESPN
Kyle Whelliston's ESPN Chat:
Scott (Reno): How much better was your Spectrum experience over Lawlor last year? We already know they have the best atmosphere in the WAC(stay down Raggie fans), just want an outside opinion.
Kyle Whelliston: I'm going to give you the difference straight up -- Utah State fans are more organized, more ruthlessly efficient, and care less about offending people than any competitor. The Refraction is a cold-blooded wrecking machine. That's all there is to it.

Midmajority.com
Games! Of! The! Night! 1/29/2009
Good Morning Hoops Nation: January 2
"We spent the evening in a Refraction t-shirt, sitting in with a USU student section that's easily one of the best in the country. You haven't lived until you've done "The Scotsman.""


There is probably more I'm forgetting, and I'll add those in as I remember them or see them.

Some love from around the interwebs

Here is the ESPN.com article on the Aggies

"And in the last game to go final in 2008, Utah State transcended a rare poor 3-point shooting night to clip Wyoming in overtime. And yes, we were at that game. We spent the evening in a Refraction t-shirt, sitting in with a USU student section that's easily one of the best in the country. You haven't lived until you've done "The Scotsman.""

from http://www.midmajority.com/2009/01/good-morning-hoops-nation-janu.php

From Kyle's ESPN.com chat

Hipster: (Mantua UT): Just wanted to say thanks for visiting the Spectrum last week and for the well researched article you did on the Aggies. I appreciate it when a journalist goes the extra mile to get the scoop. Just know you are always invited back to Logan, and if you want to experience the Spectrum at it's finest come to a Nevada, New Mexico State, Boise State, Utah, or BYU game. Love your work and plan on purchasing your book later this year.

Kyle Whelliston: (4:12 PM ET ) I appreciate the kind words, Hipster. Everybody kept telling me not to expect much of an atmosphere with the students on break, and of course there are near-sellouts. It's a phenomenal basketball city.
__________

Scott (Reno): How much better was your Spectrum experience over Lawlor last year? We already know they have the best atmosphere in the WAC(stay down Raggie fans), just want an outside opinion.

Kyle Whelliston: (4:17 PM ET ) I'm going to give you the difference straight up -- Utah State fans are more organized, more ruthlessly efficient, and care less about offending people than any competitor. The Refraction is a cold-blooded wrecking machine. That's all there is to it.
___________

Tee (charlotte, NC): We've seen a number of mid-majors play against "power-houses" and hold their own to a certain extent. Which mid major team do YOU think "can" make a deep run into the NCAAs?

Kyle Whelliston: (4:27 PM ET ) A lot of the media is still enamoured with the Curry show, but without a Jason Richards-type of players, the road back to the Elite 8 is uphill. I'm focusing on more well-rounded teams like Saint Mary's, Butler, Utah State.
____________

Isaac (Logan, Utah): Hey Kyle, which was worse: the mini ball barrage at Gossner's or the horrible Kenny G warm up music in Holt Arena?

Kyle Whelliston: (4:29 PM ET ) Hail to my tweeples! Being pelted in the head with miniballs made me scared for my life, but "Songbird" at halftime dissolved a part of my soul.
_____________

Kraig (Logan, UT): So as long as we are talking about how great Utah State is, I want to know where the Spectrum ranks in your top places to watch a game. Top 10? Top 5?

Kyle Whelliston: (4:58 PM ET ) Easily top 5, I can remove Boylan Gym at Monmouth because it's closing. I'll be back for a league game next year, if I'm still gainfully employed.

Gossner Recap

So after three days and nights spent in the Spectrum what did we learn?

-Jared Quayle is the man. Put the team on his back to get us the win against Wyoming. He gets better every single night.

-The Spectrum's reputation is getting bigger by the day. We had officials tell us that it was one of their favorite places to do a game because "when you guys are full its as loud as anywhere". One of Howard's assistant coaches told us that during a film session the camera went away from the team and panned to the crowd and the players didn't believe that it was actually the student section and watched the tape multiple times just to make sure, he also commented that he had never seen any crowd like us in 16 years of coaching and wanted to come to a USU-Nevada game at the Spectrum before he died.

-Not only that but ESPN.com and Midmajority.com writer Kyle Whelliston was in the building for all three games and couldn't say enough great things about the crowd and the team. He even came and sat with us during the USU-Wyoming game and will have an article about Utah State on ESPN.com in the next couple days. Kyle's writings on the midmajority.com have been an inspiration to me for several years now and it was awesome to finally meet him and for him to be as cool as he was.

-There were so many other great stories, from Paul Kirkpatrick from Howard's love of Subway's Chicken bacon ranch sub, to Brandon Ewing being heckled for 3 straight days and still being cool as hell to us, to having dinner with the officials at Iggy's. This years Gossner was truly one of the best Aggie basketball experiences ever.

WAC play starts on Monday, if the Aggies can keep this winning streak alive for 3 more games we could easily see a top 25 ranking in our future.

In All Honesty: The Aggies so far

The Aggies come out of the fall semester sporting a 5-1 overall record and one of the most efficient offenses in the country. The Aggies are shooting a staggering 56.6% from the field which is first in the country by 3.5% which is a rather large margin. USU is 2nd in 3 pt % at 47%. Lastly Tai Wesley (77.4%) and Gary Wilkinson (76.9%) are 2nd and 3rd in individual field goal percentage. This is a long way of saying when the Aggies shoot the ball there is a good chance of it going in the hoop.

All that being said the Aggies lost in their only true test this season falling to a pretty good BYU team @ Energy Solutions Arena last week. The tests don't stop as the Aggies play their next 3 away from the Spectrum against teams they should beat, but at the same time aren't gimmes. UVU is first on the docket and have the 4th leading scorer in the nation in Ryan Toolson at 25 a game. The Aggies then travel to Southern Utah on the 17th and end the road games at Idaho State on the 20th. Idaho State is a team without a great record (2-7) but has played a murders row of pretty good teams losing 3 games in OT (including one in double OT). The Bengals also hung tight at Wisconsin (losing 58-60) and were able to upset Utah in Pocatello.

The Aggies have never been a very strong road team. Under Morrill they have been a team that gets 23+ wins a season but a majority of them come in the friendly confines of the Spectrum. So the true test of how good this team can be will be if they can win a couple games on someone else's floor. They already were able to sneak away a victory @ UCSB thanks to a Formisano put-back, if they can come away unscathed after these road trips then this team might very well be for real.

The key for this team during the road trips, and all season will be if it can mature in a hurry. Inexperience cost them a win against BYU, but they still hung in there despite a pretty horrible shooting night from the outside. If the freshman guards (Myaer and Geiger) grow up in a hurry and along with Newbold and Quayle can keep knocking down open shots it will make it tough for teams to focus on Wesley and Wilkinson down low. If all that is happening this team will be hard to beat no matter where the game is.

Lastly if this team wants to contend for an at large bid to the big dance then it has very little room for error for the rest of the season. According to rpiforecast.com the Aggies currently sit at 73 in the RPI rankings but are expected to finish around 53. Anything above 50 will get the Aggies a look come selection Sunday (if the team fails to win the WAC tourney in Reno in March) but in order to do that 5 losses is the maximum this team can afford. The Aggies must be able to defend the home court throughout the rest of the season and only suffer a few trip ups on the road. Figuring the Aggies will lose at least a couple on the road during conference play it makes it an absolute necessity that they don't lose any more non-conference games or it will be WAC tourney or bust.

The test begins Saturday night (December 13th) in Orem. If you are a fan of the Aggies you should do what you can to get there and help this team gain some momentum on the road.

Sign of the game contest

We couldn't decide who should win the sign of the game at Energy Solutions Arena so we are leaving it up to the readers. There is a poll here on the blog with our nominees and we'll let voting decide who wins the title and the Refraction t-shirt.

BYU issue

Here is our BYU issue. In case you didn't know we at the Refraction don't like BYU very much. So here is our most immature and pissed off issue ever. Hope you enjoy it

http://www.usustats.com/refraction/Vol_2_Issue_5_-_BYU.pdf

Season Preview Issue

Please check it out:

http://www.usustats.com/refraction/