SPOKANE, Wash. -- Texas A&M learned to win while wondering if a shot from long range would ever fall.
Now that those shots are falling the Aggies are making it look easy, at least in comparison to how the rest of the NCAA tournament is playing out.
A&M's Khris Middleton and B.J. Holmes combined to go 8 of 11 from behind the 3-point arc, leading the Aggies to a comfortable 69-53 victory over Utah State on Friday in the first round of the Big Dance.
With their fifth straight NCAA first-round victory, the Aggies (24-9) moved into Sunday's second round matchup with Purdue, a 72-64 winner over Siena in Friday's first game at the Spokane Arena. A&M-Purdue will start 30 minutes after the completion of the Michigan State-Maryland game, which begins at 1:40 p.m.
Middleton and Holmes were a combined 6 of 7 from long range in the first half to give A&M a 42-29 lead that was never seriously challenged in the second half.
"When you make shots it makes you look better," A&M coach Mark Turgeon said. "We've executed all year and sometimes we didn't make shots and it doesn't look nice. Today we made them and it looked nice."
A&M shot 29 percent from beyond the arc during Big 12 play, but those struggles were not evident against Utah State's zone.
"We moved the ball great all day and were able to find the open shooters," Holmes said.
Middleton, who had a career-high 19 points, was the beneficiary of the ball movement early, making back-to-back 3s to give A&M a 12-5 lead.
"I just try to get in the rhythm of the game, and once I do that I just try to make plays and be aggressive," Middleton said. "My teammates find me a lot, so they are the ones that really get me going."
Middleton hit a third 3 to put A&M up 21-13. His fourth gave the Aggies a 24-18 lead before Holmes joined in the shootaround, canning two 3s on successive possessions to give A&M three 3s in four trips down the court.
Utah State (27-8) was supposed to be the proficient shooting team, coming in second nationally in 3-point accuracy (41 percent) and seventh in field-goal percentage (49).
The Western Athletic Conference regular-season champions missed eight of their first 10 shots, and only twice for short spans did they show an ability to capitalize on how well they run their offensive sets.
"I thought that Texas A&M really put on a dominating defensive performance," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "It's hard to [make open shots] when you don't get as many as you are used to getting, when you get one you tend to rush it a little bit.
"I had heard they were very good defensively, but to see it firsthand is pretty impressive. That is by far the best defensive team we have played all year."
Utah State shot 10 percent below its average and made only 5 of 20 3s. And when the Aggies from Utah got to the free-throw line they missed there too, going 0 for 4.
"We were good defensively for 36 minutes," Turgeon said. "Our whole thing was Utah State had to beat us with 2s today. We didn't help down and we let [Tai] Wesley do his thing in [the paint] and stayed close to shooters."
Wesley made 7 of 11 shots for a team-high 14 points, but the strategy worked on Jared Quayle, who was 5 of 18 overall and only made 1 of 9 from behind the arc.
"The only time we let down was in the second half and Quayle missed two or three wide open ones, which he normally doesn't miss," Turgeon said. "But I think they were dragging, you could see right before half they were dragging because they had to work so hard to get a shot."
Utah State's one run came near the beginning of the second half.
Middleton swished his fifth 3 to put A&M up 45-31, but USU went on a 11-4 run sparked by a Pooh Williams 3.
Donald Sloan and David Loubeau put an end to any hopes USU had, however. Sloan drove past defenders twice for four points and Loubeau had six of his 14 to turn USU away.
Holmes finished with 11 points, three of which came on a long-range bomb at the end of the shot clock that put A&M up 62-47.
While Middleton, Loubeau, Holmes and Sloan -- who had 10 points for his 17th straight double-digit game -- were doing the scoring, Bryan Davis was handling the boards. Davis had a game-high nine rebounds.
Loubeau and Davis, who were in foul trouble early, slowed down Wesley in the second half. He had four points on only four shots.
"I tried to get low, pushing him out and just stay between my man and the basket," Loubeau said. "I was just being physical with him and making him take tough shots."
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