LOGAN – With 15 minutes, three seconds left on the first half clock, Utah State’s players went to the bench for the first media timeout of their season opener against Alcorn State.
The score? 10-8 in favor of the visiting Braves. Daniel Braster had hit a 3-pointer to give his team their largest lead of the night so far. Alcorn State had thrown a couple of looks at the Utah State defense they’d not expected and decided to talk it over.
Braster would actually scored the next points for the Braves too, a nifty layup after he caught a high pass and spun to get a look at the basket. Unfortunately for Alcorn State, those two baskets from their junior forward were separated by more than 12 minutes of in-game time. Not a single Braves player scored in the span between them. They missed 15 consecutive field goal attempts and had 10 turnovers.
Utah State, to put it shortly, did not go through a similar scoring drought.
The Aggies scored 34 points in that same 15-minute span to craft a 34-0 run. It’s the single longest run by Utah State in a game since it went an a 37-0 burst against Idaho in 2006. Runs like that are truly special. USU center Aubin Gateretse said he’d never been part of a run like Wednesday evening’s
“It was it was awesome,” Gateretse said. “It really starts with our defense, with being aggressive on defense trying and get steals, deflections, blocks, and then push it in transition.”
By halftime, USU led by 38 points, with the final score landing on a dominant 101-46. The 55-point margin is the ninth-highest margin of victory, and tied for the largest against a Division I opponent in program history (also beat Weber State and Cal State Fullerton by 55 points in 2019 and 1972, respectively).
The absurd score line naturally included some pretty eye-opening stats in the box score. Utah State finished with 28 assists, just the fourth time the Aggies have had that many in a single game since 2006. The Aggies forced 20 turnovers and grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, turning those tallies into 29 points off turnovers and 23 second-chance points. They also had 29 fast break points. And they out-rebounded Alcorn State 52-27.
Being that absurdly dominant in a game is something that certainly didn’t by accident and not just because Alcorn State is ranked 349th in the KenPom rankings. Calhoun attributed it to work ethic in practice and also to the team’s performance in their preseason scrimmage against Oregon last month.
“Everybody wants to win. It’s easy to want to win, but you got to pay the price. And you got to do that in practice,” Calhoun said. “We had a scrimmage, didn’t play too well. And I thought that was the best thing that happened to us. It brought us together.”
The defense, in particular was something Calhoun had very high praise for.
“I worked for a Hall of Fame coach, Bob Huggins, maybe the best defensive coach of all time at college and that was as good as I’ve seen,” Calhoun said regarding his team’s defensive performance. “There was a 10 minute stretch there (Alcorn State) couldn’t score.”
According to Calhoun, had the Aggies not relented a bit at the end due to the blowout score, Alcorn State wouldn’t have eclipsed 40 points. As it stands, the 49 points is the first time USU has held a team under 50 points since limiting Air Force to just 46 in 2022.
On offense the 28 assists mostly told the story there. The scoring was very balanced and players moved the ball quickly up and down the court and between each other. Gateretse was a big beneficiary of the unselfish play. He scored 24 points, 16 of those being assisted by teammates. In fact, Gateretse had the most notable stat line of anyone on the night. He was perfect from the field, making 11 of 11 attempts, plus a pair of free throws, to finish with a game-high 24 points (also the second-highest scoring total of his college career). If he’d made two more attempts he would have broken the USU record for made shots without a miss, set by Mike Santos in 1978 when he went 12 for 12 against Idaho State.
“I didn’t know that,” Calhoun said of Gateretse being that close to the record. “I would have kept him in one more minute. I didn’t think it was the right thing to do, to put him in the last two minutes of a game. But what an effort. Guys lobbed it up to him all night. He’s a lob threat, there’s no doubt about it. He’s gonna continue to get better in our system.”
Three other Aggies scored in double figures, led by Ian Martinez and Tucker Anderson who each had 12. Isaac Johnson had 11 points, also leading USU in rebounds with seven. Mason Falslev and Jordy Barnes were tied for the team lead in assists, each tallying six. Barnes, a true freshman, made his Aggie and collegiate debut and played 15 minutes. Two other USU players recorded their first minutes in college, true freshman forward Isaac Davis and redshirt freshman guard Jaxon Smith.
