Utah State crowned Mountain West Champions
LAS VEGAS — The Aggies are going to the big dance for the first time in nearly a decade.
No more questions. No more analyzing the bubble. No more trips to Joe Lunardi’s latest NCAA bracket projections. It’s settled.
With its 64-57 win Saturday over San Diego State — just the second win over the Aztecs since joining the Mountain West — Utah State became the true Mountain West champions, and with it, USU will receive an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
Through the first 20 minutes, though, that result was far from a surety. SDSU’s defense smothered the Aggies at times and though USU held a 34-32 lead at the break, it was either team’s game to win. Sam Merrill said that the teams’ first half felt “pretty similar to the New Mexico game” in how they executed.
“We didn’t feel like we played all that well in the first half,” Merrill said. “And yet we were still up by two. So we were pretty confident coming out of the half.”
Just to pull off a halftime lead seemed a small miracle with how hard many of Utah State’s early goings were. But one player, Abel Porter, made it a whole lot easier. The redshirt sophomore, in just his 16th Division I start, played like a veteran. He racked up 10 points all while going a flawless 4 for 4 from the field, including 2 of 2 on 3-pointers.
Sophomore guard Abel Porter shoots a layup in the first half against San Diego State – Photo by Savy Knapp
“Abel is a gamer,” Merrill said, adding, “Pregame I could feel that he was locked in and ready. And obviously he’s made such great progress throughout the season and his confidence has gone up so much. And to be honest, it wasn’t a surprise to us, because we know that Abel’s that type of player.”
Once the halftime break ended, though, Utah State decided it’d had enough of hanging with the Aztecs and reeled off a 13-0 run spanning a little under five and a half minutes. Merrill stood at the center of that early run, flanked by Brock Miller and Neemias Queta. The trio accounted for not only the entire 13-0 run to start the half, but 27 of the Aggies’ 30 second-half points overall.
More impressive than the offensive output was the defensive silencing of SDSU’s offense, which missed its first 10 shots of the second half and were held to 33 percent shooting in the game.
“To hold a team like that to 33 percent for the game and 27 percent in the second half, that’s how you’re able to close out games,” Smith said, “and that’s how you’re able to close out championships.”
Merrill, named the conference tournament MVP to go with his regular season Player of the Year trophy, tallied a game-high 24 points — 15 in the second half. In his three-game tournament run, the junior guard averaged 23 points, five rebounds and five assists. He also shot 47.5 percent from the field and 92.6 percent from the free throw line.
Winning it all helped “validate what we did in the regular season,” as head coach Craig Smith put it. Smith also elaborated on how impressed he is with his squad’s overall body of work.
“It’s just an amazing group,” Smith said. “When you look at the growth that these guys had and we’ve talked about our youth and all that kind of stuff. You really think back to the year and not one time did we lose back-to-back games this year. Not one. You play 34 games in the schedule that we had and all the travel, to not lose back-to-back games is like incredibly difficult to do.”
Utah State Aggies center Neemias Queta (23) celebrates an Aggie victory in the Mountain West title game against the San Diego State Bulldogs in the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 16, 2019. The Aggies won the game 64-57 and will take home the Mountain West title along with a bid for the NCAA Tournament. (Megan Nielsen)
The ultimate goal for Utah State, and especially Merrill, isn’t just to win regular season titles, conference tournament games, conference championships or even appear in the NCAA Tournament. It’s about winning in March’s biggest stage.
“This is incredible,” Merrill said. “But I feel like we have a lot more left in the tank and we’re going to definitely try and show that wherever we end up this next weekend.”
That journey into March Madness will begin once Utah State’s opponent is announced on Selection Sunday, the day after winning the MW tournament. The selection show will begin at 4 p.m. MT on CBS.