SALT LAKE CITY — Even Utah State’s players and coaches were speechless to a degree after the team’s 54-53 win over San Francisco that included a wild game-winning tip-in with 15 seconds on the clock despite the team having its worst offensive night of the season.
The Aggies had taken a 52-50 lead after Kalifa Sakho made a crucial layup, grabbing his own blocked shot attempt and gracefully arcing the ball off the backboard for a go-ahead 2-pointer. That shot punctuated a 6-0 run by Utah State that flipped a 50-46 lead for San Francisco into that two-point lead.
But San Francisco had drilled a clutch shot of its own, a 3-pointer, to give the Dons the lead again with just 37 on the game clock.
Utah State ran a play that looked to isolate the man with the hot hand — Ian Martinez with his team-leading 20 points on the night — on the left wing. But Darius Brown saw an opening off a screen from Great Osobor and took an elbow jumper for a go-ahead look. That shot bounced off the rim and down into a crowd of several Aggie and Dons big-men, and after the flailing arms had gotten a touch on the ball, it bounced back up to the rim and down through the net.
HOW THE HECK DID THAT GO THROUGH THE NET?pic.twitter.com/nCZNoASjhC
— Mid-Major Madness (@mid_madness) December 16, 2023
Credit for the make went to Sakho.
“I don’t even know. I don’t remember,” Kalifa said of the play. “I just touched the ball and it goes in.”
Utah State’s job wasn’t done after that shot, though. San Francisco got two more looks at a potential game-winner of its own. Marcus Williams, the leading scorer for the Dons this season, missed a floater with 10 seconds left only for Brown to lose the ball on a turnover after snagging the rebound.
So with six seconds left on the clock, San Francisco got another stab at it, but the Aggies’ defense, led by Sakho in the low post, smothered the possession and the Dons didn’t even get a shot off.
And thus, despite its rate of 30.2 percent on field goals and 2 for 21 mark on 3-pointers, the Aggies were able to defeat a team ranked 50th in NET.
“Heck of an effort by our guys like to shoot 30 percent and nine percent from three and to still beat a really good San Francisco team,” Sprinkle said.
As the final 15 seconds demonstrated, this game, more than any other game this season, was one in which Utah State’s defense had to make the game-winning plays. Sakho’s two late field goals were important, but Sprinkle pointed more to Sakho’s defensive impact as a reason the reserve big helped win the game for the Aggies.
“I can’t say enough about Kalifa,” Sprinkle said. “On the defense end tonight he changed the game. Guarding (Jonathan) Mogbo and getting some deflections. And just his length. He moves so well for his size. We’re able to do some different things switching. We don’t we don’t come close to winning this game without Kalifa tonight.”
It was the Aggie defense that kept this game close all throughout the game, never allowing San Francisco to get its own offense going in any real way to get out ahead of Utah State.
Even in a stretch where the Dons made seven straight field goal attempts in the first half, Utah State still found a way to limit the impact of that run as it happened over a six-minute span and included multiple trips down the court where the Aggies got stops via turnovers. San Francisco did hold its largest lead of the game after that span, but at just seven points, 25-18, and the Aggies soon closed the gap just before halftime.
In the second half, Utah State made enough offensive improvements to generate just enough points to earn a win. A big part of that came on free throws — mainly just getting them. The Aggies attempted 20 free throws in the second half alone and made 15 of them (20 for 27 overall on the night). In fact, Utah State’s biggest run of the night, a 10-0 streak in the second half, was powered by eight made free throws and helped the Aggies come back from a 36-31 deficit and take their largest lead of the night, 41-36 with 12:26 left in the game.
Utah State will need to make more adjustments on offense prior to the start of its Mountain West schedule, which is sneaking up at only 17 days away. An Aggie team that entered the week with a nation-leading 53.2 field goal percentage made just 34.3% percent of its shots in their two games this week.
“Our spacing’s got to get better, and our ball movement,” Sprinkle said. “We get stagnant with the ball and sometimes we just stand around.”
Some credit must be given to San Francisco, to use Sprinkle’s words, the Dons are “top 20 in the country in all the defensive measures for a reason.” But even Sprinkle was caught off guard by how tough it was to get a basket.
“I didn’t know it would be that hard to score,” Sprinkle said. “Because I felt like we had some looks where we just needed a couple of those threes to fall down.”
Something that may have contributed to a poor week was fewer practices, partly due to it having been finals week up at Utah State. But with more practice time upcoming, the Aggies could get back on track.
“We didn’t practice like we usually do, so that was hard for us,” Sakho said. “Now we’ve got time to practice so we’re going to work on moving the ball, spacing, and yeah, we’re going to be fine.”
The Aggies will close out its non-conference schedule with a home game against East Tennessee State. That game will tip off at 7 p.m on Friday in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
