#880 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Utah State -7.5 over Nevada, Friday at 9 PM ET - Utah State finally gets to play at home. They have played 5 straight road games with their most recent home game coming back on January 21st. They’ve had a huge home court advantage over the years winning 37 of their last 41 games in Logan and they are one of the few teams in the MWC that is allowing fans so that helps as well. The Aggies had a 13 day break from Feb 4 thru Feb 17 so they were a bit rusty last week in their back to back games @ Boise State, the 1st place team in the conference. Even with that, this Aggie team played quite well taking the Broncos to the wire in each losing by 9 (it was a 1-point game with 4:30 remaining) and losing by 4. USU led both games at halftime but shot just 7 of 30 from 3-point range in the 2 games combined and they were -16 made FT’s. Despite that, they nearly pulled off wins vs 14-3 (in MWC play) Boise State. Now back at home in must win mode we expect them to play very well. They are catching Nevada in a bad spot. The Wolfpack are just back from a Covid hiatus and haven’t played in 20 days. They have a solid 9-5 MWC record but they are 0-4 SU on the road in conference play. That’s right, only 4 of their 14 conference games have been true road games. We expect Nevada to struggle on offense after their long layoff and it doesn’t help they are playing the top defense in the Mountain West. Utah State ranks #1 in defensive efficiency, 3-point % defense, 2-point % defense, and blocked shots. It’ll be tough for a Nevada team that shoots just 42% on the road (31% from 3) to get any offensive rhythm in this game. USU has already proven they can beat the best in the league here at home as they swept the top rated team San Diego State. The host has covered 8 of the last 9 in this series and we like Utah State to win this by double digits.