Boxscore

LOGAN, Utah -- In what turned out to be a back and forth second half, the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (11-7; 4-1 WAC) suffered their first conference to the Utah State Aggies (12-4; 4-2 WAC) 64-55 Wednesday night in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in front of a crowd of 8,755.

?I thought we did as well as you can do against these guys,? head coach Keith Richard said. ?We did awfully good coming into their place like we did. This was a tough place to play. It got very loud. That probably had an affect on our guard play.?

The Bulldogs struck first with a lay up from junior forward Paul Millsap at the 19:38 mark, thanks to a steal from junior guard Marcus Elliot.

The Aggies responded with an 8-0 over the next four minutes of game time before the Bulldogs scored another basket at the 14:41 mark in the first half when senior guard Corey Dean buried a jumper to put the Bulldogs down 8-4.

Utah State slowly added to their lead over the course of the first half, but with time expiring Elliot hit a three-point shot at the buzzer to cut the halftime lead to 33-27 in favor of the Aggies.

As the Bulldogs began to close the gap in the beginning of the second half, Haskins argued a call from the official and received a technical that would give him his fifth foul with 18:08 in the second half. True freshman Drew Washington took over in Haskin?s place for most of the remainder of the game.

?Haskins being out hurt the rest of players,? Richard said. ?He makes the good passes to move us. We just had erratic, bad guard play in a game where the ?play hard,? rebound and defense would have won it.?

The Bulldogs defended the Aggies very well for the rest of the game, and even led 46-43 Bulldogs with 11:16 left in the game.

?We gave ourselves a chance to win with great defense,? Richard said. ?Unfortunately, we had terrible guard play in second half. Too many turnovers. We didn?t make good passes or plays in the second half. Our guards forgot about the best player in league Paul Millsap. They got tentative and that cost us chance to go down to the wire.?

Utah State would regain the lead and keep it for the remainder of the ballgame with a little over eight minutes left and would deal the Bulldogs their first WAC loss of the 2005-06 season.
?Losing is never good,? Richard said. ?But we?re going to learn from this. When we get in the situation again, we?ve got to make good passes and we can?t turn ball over and know where Millsap?s at. We just got tentative because we turned ball over too much

Even with the loss, Richard saw some good points and still has high hopes for the remainder of the season.

?Our defense and rebounding is good so far,? Richard said. ?We have a lot of depth, and we?ve got the right idea about what we need to do. Somewhere along the way still got to make shots and handle the ball. On a positive note, this team doesn?t give up. We play hard. When they make mistakes, it?s not a lack of effort. That?s going to take us a long way in the season.?

Tech was led by Millsap with 20 points and 17 rebounds.

The Bulldogs return home Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. to take on the New Mexico State Aggies in the Thomas Assembly Center.