WBB Preview: Aggies Host Matinee Before Hitting The Road

Utah State is looking to get in the win column before a lengthy road trip, hosting Cal State Bakersfield for its annual Elementary Day game.

The story for Utah State so far isn't especially uncommon for teams so young: These Aggies don't yet know how to win. While Utah State needs to figure out how to close out games, Bakersfield is still just trying to be competitive. The Roadrunners have suffered two blowout losses, a 93-52 defeat to Grand Canyon and a 71-42 loss to Colgate.

Like Utah State's Wes Brooks, Ari Wideman is in her first year coaching Cal State Bakersfield – and it hasn’t come together yet for the Roadrunners. They have one of the worst defenses in the country and the offense isn’t much better. Defensively, the Roadrunners are allowing 82 points per game and offensively they're scoring just 47 points per game, having yet to reach 60 points, a mark Utah State has passed in both of its contests.

The Aggies have struggled this season as well, but they have been competitive in games, they have star power, and they have a clear identity. That identity revolves around forcing turnovers and shooting threes, and fortunately for the Aggies, Bakersfield doesn’t seem well-equipped to combat either of those things. It will still be a tough matchup for a team that hasn’t proven it can win yet, but the Aggies will be looking to take advantage of a favorable matchup before they embark on an eight-game road trip.

Players To Know

Taylor Caldwell: Caldwell is a graduate senior in her second year with Bakersfield. Before that, she spent three years at Grand Canyon.

She didn’t play in the team’s last game, but in the season opener, she came off the bench and scored a team-high 12 points against her former team while adding five rebounds, an assist and three steals. Over her career, she’s become a well-rounded player, averaging 8.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, three assists and 1.9 steals per game. 

If she plays, she’s a viable scorer for the Roadrunners. For her career, she shoots 35.6 percent from the field, 25.6 percent from deep, and 63.0 percent from the line. Caldwell went on a run during the Big West tournament last year and was a huge part of Bakersfield's push to the semifinals, pitching in 16.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.3 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 3.3 blocks during that three-game stretch. She also notched her career-high as a Roadrunner with 19 points in a 61-59 double overtime win over UC Irvine.

Ary Dizon: Dizon came off the bench at Vermont for two seasons before transferring to Bakersfield. She didn’t start a single game in her time there, but played decent minutes as a rotational player, checking in for an average of 7.7 minutes in 26 games as a freshman and 8.3 minutes in 28 games as a sophomore. She played for two winning teams at Vermont, and in her second year, the Catamounts earned a berth to the NCAA tournament.

She played two games for Bakersfield last season before being sidelined, and has looked solid in her return to the court. In those two games, she averaged four points, four rebounds, a steal and a block. 

The coaching staff has been leaning on her experience on the court, doling out a whopping 35 minutes per game this season. She’s the team leader in assists and had a team-high nine points against Colgate, averaging 7.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, a steal and 1.5 blocks per game. 

Melissa Secchiaroli: Secchiaroli is another veteran that this coaching staff has been leaning on. She has been averaging 36.5 minutes per game and doing the best she can with it, serving primarily as a scorer without much of a role as a distributor or defender.

The senior from Sorgues, France started her career at Wichita State and then spent two years at Morehead State before becoming a Roadrunner. Last year, she became a solid contributor for the latter school, seeing action in 28 games and earning 19 starts while averaging 22.5 minutes per game. She logged 6.7 points and 1.7 rebounds per contest and hit 37 threes, good for third-most on the team.

This year, she’s averaging 8.0 points and 3.0 rebounds a night, but she hasn’t recorded an assist or steal in 73 minutes of play. Her performance this season has been nothing if not consistent, though. In each of Bakerfield's first two games, she recorded eight points, three rebounds, no assists, no steals, two personal fouls and shot 3 of 11 from the field.

Secchiaroli is one of the team's chief scoring threats, and is one of only four Roadrunners to connect on a three-pointer this year, though she (and the others) has only done so once. She is 1 of 8 from deep this season and is a career 25 percent three-point shooter.

Stats To Know

Three-Point Shooting %: Again, the three-pointer will be a key in this matchup, but for a very different reason than in Utah State's last game, which featured two teams that love to shoot the three. This match will include just one. 

The Roadrunners don’t shoot three-pointers, and when they do, they don’t make them. On the season, Bakersfield has attempted just 33 triples and of those, only four found the bottom of the net. Utah State shot and made more than that in its game against CSUN alone, going 11 of 47 against the Matadors. On the season, the Aggies have hit 21 of 77 three-point attempts, and that volume will continue.

While the Aggies will continue to shoot, the Roadrunners are not only reluctant to do so, but incapable. In their season opener, they went 0-17 with seven players, including all five starters, taking a crack at it. They improved to 4-16 in their game against Colgate. Additionally, Bakersfield’s opponents have shot 48 percent from three.

This disparity in style and ability is something Utah State will try to capitalize on. The Aggies are trying to solidify their identity around the three-point shot and will gladly trade threes for twos against Bakersfield. If they can continue to hit threes at their current clip, or as Brooks would prefer, if they can start to be a little more accurate, this would be a great time to pile on against a lackluster defense.

Cheyenne Stubbs, Mia Tarver and Jamisyn Heaton have emerged as the early usage leaders on this team, but against Bakersfield, others should find involvement as well. Denae Skelton’s three-point shooting abilities will be useful and Elise Livingston, who has yet to break out, would do well to see some shots fall.

Turnover Percentage: This Bakersfield team has had a hard time holding onto the ball. The Aggies have had their fair share of struggles with turning the ball over in recent years, and those problems have persisted this year, but the Roadrunners have been worse. Bakersfield is giving it away 23 times a game and has a turnover rate of 28 percent, among the worst in the country. 

This plays well for the Aggies, because they are grabbing 14 steals per game and boast a steal rate of 15.2 percent. At times, the full-court press has worked wonders for Utah State, and at others, it has broken down in a puff of smoke. The half-court defense has been generating turnovers as well, but it is not without flaws. Against a turnover-prone team, Utah State could sort some things out on defense – a welcome opportunity moving forward as this young team continues to find its way within a brand-new system.