Utah State gets at-large bid to NCAA Tournament

The Aggies had to sweat it out, but they’ll get to take their dancing shoes off the shelf and head to Indianapolis to participate in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. The selection committee picked Utah State as an 11-seed in this year’s iteration of the Big Dance and they’ll face the sixth-seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders.

Texas Tech, ranked 20th in the most recent AP Poll, went 17-10 this season, 9-8 in conference games to finish sixth in the Big 12 standings. They lost to No. 13 Texas in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.

Losing to San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference Tournament final meant that, unlike the previous two seasons, Utah State’s place in the tournament was not guaranteed; and with two Quad 3 losses and only two Quad 1 wins, the Aggies were projected to be on the razor’s edge to make the cut. However, USU comfortably made it in. The “Last Four In” list released by the selection committee did not include the Aggies even though most bracketologists had them in that group or in the “Last Four Out.”

Utah State has now made it to the NCAA Tournament, or qualified to be there, in each of Craig Smith’s three seasons as head coach. In his first season as coach, the Aggies were an eight seed, the highest in program history. Last year, USU won the Mountain West tournament, officially earning a bid, but did not play since the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.

There are several Aggie connections to the Red Raiders. First and foremost is that former USU football head coach, Matt Wells, is the current head coach at TTU. A smaller connection is that Matt Mooney, whom Smith coached while at South Dakota, led the Red Raiders to the Final Four in 2019 where they lost in the championship game to Virginia (current Aggie, Marco Anthony was on that Cavaliers team).