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Logan • This one wasn't even close.

While the first two wins of the World Vision Invitational ended in blowouts for Utah State, they at least started and stayed competitive for an extended period of time.

Thursday night's 80-39 victory over hapless Troy was neither competitive nor very challenging for the Aggies.

In fact, before 8,323 at the Spectrum, USU's biggest obstacles were boredom and the quality of basketball. Stew Morrill wanted to still see his team play hard, and still see his team playing as if the game was in doubt, as hard as that may have been.

"Obviously, Troy wasn't at their best tonight," Morrill said. "For whatever reason, this wasn't the same team that beat Western Michigan a few nights ago. I kept telling our guys to keep playing and play good basketball. I've been on both sides of a game like this, and to be honest it's not really fun for either team."

With the victory, the Aggies are now riding a six game winning streak and have been more dominant with each outing. They started Thursday with a 22-4 run and never allowed things to get close. The final statistics showed how merciless the rout was.

USU made 28 field goals, Troy made 12. Utah State outrebounded the Trojans 55-32. Troy shot 19 percent for the game, 5-for-26 from 3-point land, had more turnovers than assists, and failed to put a player in double-figure scoring.

Utah State, conversely, was led by Brian Green, the tournament's Most Valuable Player. He scored a game-high 23 points, made six 3-pointers, grabbed six rebounds, handed out five assists and didn't turn the ball over.

Tai Wesley, an all-tournament performer, scored nine points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Tyler Newbold also made the all-tournament team, and scored 10 points to go with seven rebounds. Brockeith Pane also had 10 points.

The Aggies shot 12 for 33 from 3-point range, against what was mostly a zone defense. Once they started to get the ball inside, shots came easily.

"We definitely came out with some fire," junior forward Morgan Grim said. "We started the game a little flat, but once we gathered ourselves and took better shots and passed the ball, we started to pick it up. You have to keep the ball moving against the zone. Get the ball moving back and forth and they will slip up. We just made both our inside and outside shots."

Utah State opens conference play next week with home games against Hawaii and San Jose State.

tjones@sltrib.com Twitter: @tonyaggieville —

USU 80, Troy 39

R Utah State cruises to an easy win in improving to 11-2.

• Brian Green scores a game-high 23 points.