Utah State’s 11-1 start and 10-game win streak, recently extended by its thrilling win over San Francisco, is one of the best starts to a season for any Aggie team and its best in 11 years. Only three other seasons in program history — 2012-13 (14-1), 2008-09 (24-1), 2003-04 (20-1) — have matched this year’s crew by starting at least 11-1. And while this year’s start is on the higher end for win-to-loss ratio for USU as a program, Aggie fans are used to great starts to pretty much any season and very often see those expectations met. One need only gesture in the direction of the Stew Morrill era to find out where Utah State faithful get their expectations of great basketball, but recent seasons, coming long after Morrill’s retirement, have proven to be highly successful, especially at the beginning of the year. In the last six years, including this season, the Aggies have started no worse than 8-3 through the first 11 games. Even with 3 coaches in the last 6 seasons, Utah State has started off basketball seasons well with no exception. 2018-19 — 9-22019-20 — 13-22020-21 — 12-32021-22 — 8-32022-23 — 10-12023-24 — 11-1 Winning happens

LOGAN — For his stellar back-to-back performances, and aiding Utah State to a crucial 2-0 week, Aggie guard Ian Martinez earned the Mountain West Player of the Week award. Martinez averaged 24.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 steals last week in the Aggies’ wins over Santa Clara and San Francisco. He also shot 52.0 percent from the field, 41.7 percent from three and went 17 for 21 (81.0 percent) on free throws. After Utah State’s game against San Francisco, USU head coach Danny Sprinkle gave high praise to the senior guard. “He’s a big time player, man,” Sprinkle said. “He’s just a big time athlete. He can score it. It doesn’t matter how you guard him, he can still get a shot off. He’s down there fighting, getting rebounds.” The Aggies won last week’s two games by a combined three points, and in such intense, every-possession-matters games, Martinez made big plays in crucial situations. Against Santa Clara he scored eight of the Aggies final 10 points, including a massive 3-pointer that put USU up five points with 1:31 left in the game and four free throws in the last 20 seconds that kept USU up by four points on the