Aggies fly past Air Force on the wings of another dominant 3-point shooting day | Sports



Long-distance dominance led Utah State to a second straight lopsided victory. The Aggies made 16 threes — matching their total from Wednesday’s win over Nevada — to claim an 87-58 W on the road against Air Force.

According to Basketball Reference’s Stathead database, it’s the first time Utah State has ever hit 16 threes in back-to-back games (and only the eighth time ever in program history). The Aggies have also shot at least 37 percent in all of their previous five games and have eclipsed 50 percent in three of their last four.

“I think as we get further and further on in the season we’re used to spacing, where each other is going to be, knowing where our shooters are and being able to make that extra passes to each other,” USU center Isaac Johnson said. “I don’t think that it was something that we necessarily prepared for specifically, but it’s something that we’re always ready for, because we know that with the type of players that we have, the type of space we can create, that they’re going to be there. So we just got to be ready to step up and take them when they’re there.”

The 3-point barrage began just under four minutes into the game. Air Force had taken its first (and ultimately only) lead, 6-4. Mason Falslev hit the first triple of the night for the Aggies and it only escalated from there.

Falslev’s 3-pointer actually kicked off a 25-6 Aggie run, one that included seven 3-pointers by four different Aggies. Falslev had the first, with Ian Martinez, Johnson and Dexter Akanno each hitting a pair. The only non 3-pointers of the run were a pair of Drake Allen dunks. By the end of this bombing run, Utah State led by 17 points, 29-12.

That wouldn’t be the end of the Aggies’ worries, though. Air Force proved its mettle in nearly taking down San Diego State on Wednesday and showed that same determination against the odds on Saturday. After going down by 17 with nine minutes remaining in the half, the Falcons trimmed their deficit to just six points by the one-minute mark of the opening 20 minutes. Only a Karson Templin 3-pointer — which marked the 10th three of the first half for Utah State — would push the Aggies’ lead back up to more than two possessions.

“We got a little careless obviously. We got up 17 they cut it up nine at the half,” Calhoun said. “Give Air Force a lot of credit. I mean, they’re playing regardless of the score. And I thought they came steaming back.”

Utah State stepped up their game in nearly every way in the second half. Although they led virtually all the first half, and by quite a lot for some stretches, there were still a few warts in the Aggies’ performance that required some tuning. They’d shot just 5 for 11 at the rim (worse than their 3-point percentage) and had allowed Air Force to grab seven offensive rebounds. Some other defensive tweaks were also needed with the Falcons making 4 of 8 three themselves.

All of those things, and a little more, were nearly perfected in the second half. Utah State missed just one layup the entire second half, gave up just three offensive rebounds despite Air Force shooting far worse from the field in the second half (31.8 percent) compared to the first (42.9). The adjustments Calhoun and his staff made at halftime were very well received and executed.

“Every halftime we’ve done a pretty good job of adjusting you know to the offense,” Calhoun said about making tweaks to the defense at halftime. “I think that’s the nice thing about playing the zone instead of man-to-man, you can make a lot of different adjustments at halftime. And I don’t want to get into too many of those because people will read what we’re doing, but we’re gonna continue to make good adjustments at halftime. The kids listen, that’s the greatest thing, we can adjust and they can do it on the fly, whether it’s how we’re guarding cutting, how we’re guarding ball-screens, how we’re guarding the post. Are we pressing, are we full-court are we three-quarter? We can make a lot of adjustments with this team. And I think that’s been one of our biggest strengths is coming out of halftime, adjusting, not overreacting to the score.”

One of the biggest factors in Utah State’s victory, though, was not entertaining any opportunities for Air Force to make a close game out of Saturday’s matinee. When the Falcons took the lead in the early minutes, the Aggies went on their massive run. Late in the half, Templin hit his 3-pointer to make the halftime lead nine instead of six. Air Force shaved the lead down to seven early in the second half, but the Aggies put together a 13-0 run to take their first 20-point lead of the afternoon at the 9:19 mark of the second half.

Every swing by Air Force was met with a haymaker from Utah State, though Johnson noted they probably shouldn’t have had to lock in during those moments.

“We have a lot of guys that have played a lot of games in college. And I think a lot of times what happens is sometimes we take our foot off the gas,” Johnson said. “So we have that potential to keep on pushing like we did in those runs and those stretches. It just takes an extra level of maturity that we as older guys need to enforce and keep up. I think that’s something that we have the capacity to do every single game and that we honestly should do. And we need to just realize those times when it feels like we’re taking our foot off the gas and just lock in.”

Johnson played a role in a couple of those big runs, and had himself a resurgent game. The junior 7-footer had effectively missed the last three games (he only played the final 50 seconds against Nevada and didn’t play against Boise State or UNLV) due to an aggressive bout if illness. According to Calhoun, he’d barely been able to practice last week and had been working himself back into game shape. With Karson Templin limited in this game due to an ankle injury suffered in the last game, Johnson saw a few extra minutes and finished second on the team with 12 points. All of those were scored on 3-point shots with Johnson going 4 of 6 from deep. He also added four rebounds and a block in his 11 minutes on the court.

“I’ve kind of had a, I don’t want to say a down year, but it’s just been an adjustment year,” Johnson said. “I’ve had a new coach every single year. And so it’s been interesting for me to just adjust. And I think it’s good for me to get this game under my belt and hopefully just continue helping the team here on out and get that Mountain West championship and national championship.”

Martinez ended up leading the Aggies in scoring with 16 points in only 21 minutes, he made 4 of 7 threes. Falslev scored 11 points and led USU with eight rebounds while being second in assists with five. Tucker Anderson scored 10 points to round out double-figure scorers for the Aggies. Allen and Jordy Barnes tied for the team lead in assists with six apiece.

Utah State’s win advances them to 8-1 in Mountain West play and keeps it within half a game of first place New Mexico, which survived a close game at UNLV to move to 9-1 in conference games. The Aggies will face that same UNLV team on Wednesday at home in a rematch of the Jan. 16 game in which the Rebels handed USU its only defeat in conference play.



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