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OGDEN — Following Thursday’s victory over Northern Arizona, Weber State's Randy Rahe said his team’s performance was “closer” to the team-wide effort he’s been seeking in recent weeks.
On Saturday, a team-wide effort fell in favor of a three-headed monster, as Jerrick Harding, Zach Braxton and Ryan Richardson combined for 69 points to dispatch Big Sky and in-state rival Southern Utah 92-76 at the Dee Events Center.
“We’re getting better,” Rahe said of his team following their second consecutive 90-plus point outing Saturday. “There's a lot of things we need to improve on. … I really believe that our best basketball is going to be down the road for us. … We just want to continue making improvement.”
Harding shot 12-of-20 to match a career-high 31 points, while Richardson shot 4 of 6 from three as part of a 16-point performance for the junior.
Braxton also matched career-high marks, scoring 22 points and pulling down 13 rebounds while going 10-11 from the free-throw line en route to his third double-double of the season. The junior center redirected praise to his teammates when asked about his season-best performance.
“Those guys do what they’re supposed to do and I just try to complement them,” he said.
Weber State (9-6; 2-1) built an early 14-5 lead behind a combined 10 points from Braxton and Richardson before SUU countered with a 6-0 run with 11:35 remaining in the first half.
From there, the remainder of the half belonged to Dusty Baker, who notched six assists as part of a seven-assist effort in the opening 20 minutes.
The 25-year-old Baker knocked down a pair of threes, found Braxton for three dunks and accounted for 23 of Weber State’s 43 first-half points by staying true to his reads.
“He makes a good read,” Rahe said of Baker’s court vision and pick-and-roll prowess. “He sees everything. He picked it apart a little bit tonight. … The strength of Dusty is his skill-level and feel for the game.”
Baker registered the fourth of his six first-half assists when he passed to the right wing to find Richardson, who extended WSU’s lead to eight, 30-22, after launching from deep space for his second triple of the half.
The Wildcats held fast to a 43-32 lead as the three-pronged attack of Harding, Braxton and Richardson combined for 37 points in the first half.
Later in the second half, clinging to a 57-54 lead with 11:26 remaining, Ricky Nelson gave the Wildcats their second life by scoring all eight of his points in a two-minute, 39-second stretch and igniting a 13-4 run.
“We hit a little bit of a lull and we needed a spark,” Rahe said. “I thought that spark he gave us was really big to our team.”
Leading 70-58 with 8:30 remaining, Harding and Braxton combined for 14 of Weber State’s final 22 points with the latter going a perfect 6-6 from the free-throw line to close out the victory.
“It was a game of runs. We’re going to miss shots sometimes, we just have to find a way to fight through it," Harding said of his team's ability to close out the game. "Tonight, I feel like we had a lot of energy. Shots were eventually going to fall, we just had to keep playing hard.”
Riding high after two straight wins, the point guard added the team is feeling as confident as ever as it heads out on the road for games at Northern Colorado and North Dakota.
“I feel like we got our competitiveness back. We were lacking that before. So I feel like we need to bring it even more when we go on the road. I feel like we’re ready.” Dillon Anderson is studying literary journalism as a student at the University of Utah. You can follow him on Twitter @DillonDanderson.
