WBB Preview: Aggies Hit The Road For San Jose State Meeting

Despite a 101-79 loss, Utah State put some things together against New Mexico on Tuesday. It’s quickly becoming a season defined by putting things together, learning, growing, and taking small steps – and the Aggies hope the next step in their progress is a win.

The latest step the Aggies took was rectifying something that has largely been missing this season: Utah State got multiple star performances from multiple star players. The Aggies finally found a way to involve both Cheyenne Stubbs and Jamisyn Heaton, two of the team’s leading scorers, at the same time. Stubbs dropped 24 points and Heaton added 13 against the Lobos. It was the first time that both players scored in double digits since Stubbs returned from her injury. The last time it happened, it worked out pretty well for the Aggies. That was on Nov. 14, when Heaton had 19 and Stubbs had 12 in Utah State's only victory of the season so far, a 67-51 win over Bakersfield.

Sophie Sene, Elise Livingston and Denae Skelton each posted higher-than-average numbers which, in turn, helped the Aggies post a higher-than-average final score. Sene averages 5.1 points and scored eight, Livingston averages 5.6 points and had 14, and Skelton averages 5.8 points and had 12. Notably, the Aggies were without two of the team's other leading scorers. Mia Tarver and Taliyah Logwood, who could both return at any point, were out with injuries.

The almost 80 points they had against New Mexico could be enough if the defense can do more to slow down the much less powerful offense of San Jose State on Saturday afternoon. New Mexico is averaging the second-most points per game in the conference with 73.4 PPG, behind only UNLV’s 75.7. The Spartans are scoring an average of 65.5 points per game, and even if the Aggies, who are giving up an average of 79.9, allow the Spartans to sneak past that number, they could make up the difference on the other end, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

This game could easily turn into an offensive showcase – a style of play that wouldn’t necessarily benefit either team – and become a race to 80 points. If the Aggies do get into a boat race, however, they do have a few things going in their favor. One is their pace of play, another is their ability to force turnovers, and, at times, protect the ball, and the third is their explosive scoring ability. Even with all that, the Aggies can’t continue to fall into the same traps they’ve fallen into. They can’t let the Spartans shoot video game numbers from deep, they can’t give up multiple 10-0 runs or a 30-point quarter, and they can’t get themselves into a large deficit early on. They don’t need a career night from every player on the roster to beat the Spartans, but there is very little room for regression. A victory in San Jose probably requires Stubbs and Heaton to, again, coexist in an offense that leaves plenty of room for the both of them.

Similar performances from the last game from Sene, Livingston or Skelton would go a long way in helping the Aggies, too. If CJ Latta, who is still averaging 8.2 after two low-scoring games gets back on track, she could open up the offense as a third star with Stubbs and Heaton and make it very difficult for San Jose State to cover the floor. Gracie Johnson has shown flashes of offense that could give the Aggies another option, and players like Isabella Tanedo and Ava Smith could step up and be a factor too. The Aggies have plenty of weapons, they just need enough of them to be ready to go, and the potential return of Tarver or Logwood (who grew up in nearby Oakland) could only help as well.

Especially after what it did against New Mexico, the offense looks poised to do some damage against San Jose State. The offense is not the problem, and Wes Brooks has said as much.

“I thought we were really good offensively, but as I’ve been emphasizing, we have to defend better,” Brooks said after the New Mexico loss. “We had great offensive aggression, but we need more defensive aggression… I love to score, but we gotta get some stops.”

Players To Know

Djessira Diawara: San Jose State’s leader is a 6-3 senior transfer from Houston. At Houston, she played in 27 games with 12 starts, working mostly on clean-up duty and averaging 2.1 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. She didn’t take a single three, but shot 51.4 percent from the field and 82.6 percent from the stripe. 

This year, her role has been much larger. She’s playing nearly triple the minutes she was last year, going from 8.8 to 25.5 minutes per game, and she’s taking five times as many shot attempts, from 1.4 up to 7.0. She’s leading the team in total points and is scoring 9.4 a game. She’s also leading the team in rebounds with 6.5, while shooting 58.6 percent from the field.

She is a big presence on the floor, and can be a major problem if she gets loose. She recently notched her third double-double of the year with a season-high 22 points, 10 rebounds, an assist and a steal against Air Force. Her season high on the boards is 14, which she got against CSUN and matched the very next game in another double-double with 15 points, 14 rebounds and a steal against UNC Wilmington. 

The Aggies have been better defensively inside than they have on the perimeter. They need to keep that up to help contain a Spartan offense that relies on Diawara and interior scoring to put points on the board.

“We're doing a great job of keeping people out of the paint,” Brooks noted after the loss to San Diego State, “but we have lost every game because of people beating us from three.”

Diawara isn’t a threat to beat the Aggies from three, but her teammate Sydni Summers is.

Sydni Summers: The Spartans really have just one shooter, and it’s Summers. She has taken 122 three-pointers this season, more than anyone at Utah State, and more than twice as much as Amira Brown, who has taken just 59. Summers is not the team’s best offensive player, but to the Aggies, she might be the biggest threat. Utah State has done a poor job defending the three and Summers will be more than happy to take advantage of that if it's not something Utah State can address.

The Aggies got a taste of it last year when she had nine points on three triples against Utah State in a 69-54 SJSU win. She did not play when the teams met again and Utah State escaped with a one-point victory. She ended the 2023-24 season averaging 7.8 points, 1.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals to earn a spot on the Mountain West All-Freshman Team.

This season she has been even better. She is hitting 2.1 threes a night, fourth in the conference behind Viane Cumber, Emma Ronsiek and Mariah Elohim. Three times this season she has hit five threes, twice on 5-of-7 shooting and once on a 5 of 11 night. Her season high is 17, which she has reached three times. Unsurprisingly, those three games are the same three games in which she hit five three-pointers. She is shooting 34.4 percent from deep and averaging 9.2 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. 

Amiah Simmons: On the season, she is averaging 10.1 points, 2.3 rebounds and an assist per game, but that hardly tells the story of who Simmons is.

She has played 12 games, divided into two oddly asymmetrical six-game stretches, missing an eight-game stretch in between. She was an entirely different player on either side of the break. Simmons didn’t score in the team’s debut against Xavier and averaged only 5.2 points through her first six games. Since returning, she has been one of the more important pieces of the Spartan offense. She took a minute to get back into the swing of things with only six points against UNLV in her return and seven points against Colorado State in the game after, but dropped double digits in her next four games, including two 20-point games. In her six games since returning, she is averaging 15 points a night.

It's not just her offense that has been on another level. It’s everything. She recorded only four rebounds in her first six games combined. In her six games since returning to the floor, she has 23, averaging 3.8 per game. She averaged half an assist per game in her first six games and 1.5 in her last six. She recorded only two steals in her first six games, both against San Francisco State, but has been averaging 1.3 since returning. Her scoring numbers have been the most drastic, but Simmons has been much, much better across the board after missing eight games.

A player averaging 15 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.3 steals is a very different player than the one described by the full-season stats, and that's the player that Utah State will be facing on Saturday afternoon.