Utah State defeats San Diego State in Mountain West heavyweight bout
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Jan. 31 at 8:58 p.m. to adhere to AP Style guidelines.
The Spectrum was buzzing long before the opening tip.
Students packed the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum more than an hour early on the morning of Jan. 31, many of them having camped out for days in freezing temperatures, waiting for a moment Utah State basketball rarely gets: a No. 1 vs. No. 2 Mountain West showdown on national television. When the ball finally went up, the noise never relented.
By the time it was over, Utah State had delivered a performance worthy of every decibel.
With a come-from-behind effort defined by toughness, rebounding and timely shot-making, Utah State rallied past San Diego State 71-66, handing the Aztecs their second conference loss and claiming one of the biggest wins of the season — and perhaps the Jerrod Calhoun era.
“This was a really big win for us,” Calhoun said. “Really want to shout out our players to win this game, as ugly as we played offensively. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of that, where your two best players went 6-of-21, you had 18 turnovers, but the difference was we were the tougher team the last seven minutes of the game.”
The opening minutes looked exactly like a matchup between two elite defensive teams fighting for first place.
Seemingly every shot was contested, passing lanes disappeared and bodies continually hit the floor. Both teams opened the game shooting a combined 2-for-12, and Utah State turned the ball over three times in the first four minutes as San Diego State’s pressure immediately set the tone.
San Diego State struck first behind its athleticism and length, breaking Utah State’s press for open looks and using offensive rebounds to build an early edge. Reese Dixon-Waters and Miles Byrd punished mistakes, and when SDSU buried a pair of jumpers midway through the half, the Aztecs stretched the lead to nine.
Utah State’s offense sputtered with empty fast breaks, missed layups and rushed threes, and frustration briefly bubbled over when a scuffle between Garry Clark and Tae Simmons resulted in offsetting technical fouls.
But the Aggies never panicked.
“Nobody cares about the whistle,” Calhoun said. “You’ve got to play through it.”
Down 29-18 with under four minutes left in the half, Utah State finally found its footing, and the Spectrum erupted with it.
MJ Collins Jr., who opened the game 0-for-7 from the field, drew a foul on a three and calmly knocked down two free throws. Karson Templin began to impose himself inside, scoring through contact and answering SDSU jumpers with timely buckets of his own.
The defining moment of the half came in the final seconds.
After Utah State forced a stop, Drake Allen missed a layup with just a few seconds to go, but Adlan Elamin soared in for a tip-dunk before time expired. The Spectrum exploded once again, and Utah State walked to the locker room having erased an 11-point deficit to tie the game 34-34.
“We just talked in the huddle, ‘We need to move the ball better. We need to make some plays,'” Templin said. “We ended up doing that the last four minutes, and it carried us on over to the next half, which was huge for us, being tied going into the next half.”
The second half brought more adversity for the Aggies.
San Diego State continued to execute in the half-court, leaning on Dixon-Waters’ incredible shot-making to maintain a narrow lead. Utah State turned it over repeatedly early, and when the Aztecs pushed the margin to seven with 10 minutes left, the Aggies were staring at another uphill climb.
Then came the response.
Utah State tightened defensively, swarming ball handlers and winning 50-50 balls. The Aggies began to dominate the glass, eventually outrebounding San Diego State by 15 by the game’s end, and chip away possession by possession.
Templin was at the center of it all.
The junior forward finished with a season-high 18 points, battling through contact, fouls and hard falls while anchoring Utah State’s interior presence. He scored in transition, hit two critical threes, set punishing screens and protected the rim.
“K.T. was a beast tonight,” Calhoun said. “If we don’t have him, we don’t win the game.”
Utah State finally pulled even when Allen converted a three-point play with 7:39 remaining, tying the game at 52. From there, the Aggies delivered their most composed stretch of basketball all season.
After SDSU briefly regained the lead, Mason Falslev sparked a decisive sequence by first scoring off an inbound, then finishing a steal and pass from Allen that put Utah State ahead for good.
Moments later, with the Aztecs threatening, Collins delivered redemption.
After missing his first 10 shots, the senior guard drilled a step-back three to answer a Byrd triple, then buried another from the wing with 2:38 left to push the lead to five. Each made basket sent the Spectrum further into frenzy.
“That’s what good players do,” Templin said of Collins. “You trust him every time.”
The exclamation point came with under two minutes remaining.
Templin drove into the lane and rose as if he was shooting a floater, just to lob the ball toward the rim where Elamin met it for a thunderous dunk. Utah State led by seven, and the building shook as intensely as it had all day.
“I love playing with Addie,” Templin said. “He can shoot it, he can catch anything.”
San Diego State made one final push, trimming the lead to three on a deep Dixon-Waters triple, but Allen responded with a straight-line drive to the rim and finish to seal it.
When the final horn sounded, Utah State players embraced near midcourt as the Spectrum roared. The Aggies survived 18 turnovers, cold shooting stretches and constant pressure, and they still found a way.
“We didn’t flinch,” Calhoun said. “You can’t win the game if you don’t win the fight.”
Utah State held San Diego State, a team averaging 80 points per game, to just 66, doing so through effort, connectivity and belief. It was a win fueled by defense and resilience, not aesthetics.
And it meant something.
“This is the best place to play in the country,” Templin said. “I don’t think we could have done without them. The crowd pops when you score. Whenever they’re bringing the ball up, it flusters the other team, and I think they really have an effect.”
With the win, Utah State moved into a tie for first place in the Mountain West at 9-2, alongside San Diego State, which just suffered its second conference loss after losing to Grand Canyon on Jan. 21.
Calhoun may have said it best: “This headline should be all about the Aggies defense and the Aggies toughness — and the HURD’s toughness for [being] three days out in that cold.”
On a morning when Logan showed up early and loud, Utah State made sure the wait was worth it.