Late last week, Utah State played its worst basketball of the year in a 74-61 loss to South Florida. And six minutes into the Aggies second road game in three days — this time at Charlotte — they were playing roughly on par with how they’d looked a few days prior. Utah State shot just 1-for-9 from the field to start the game, allowing Charlotte to take a 12-5 lead.
Alongside its shooting struggles, Utah State was struggling on the glass.
Charlotte had a 7-foot-2 center, Anton Bonke, who gave USU fits with 13 rebounds, five of which were on the offensive end. The 49ers had 14 offensive boards the entire game, which tied a season high for them and marked the most Utah State has yielded to an opponent all year. According to junior guard Mason Falslev, that wasn’t for a lack of effort.
“I feel like every ball somehow bounces to the other team. I can’t even lie,” Falslev said. “We’re out there boxing out. We’re trying as hard as we can and I feel like it just bounces to them a majority of the time. But we got to do our part. We got to box out. We got to be physical and we got to want it more.”
Thankfully for the Aggies, the rough beginnings gave way to a dominant middle and end to the game. After a 1-for-9 shooting start, they made 15 of their next 22 field goal attempts which flipped a seven-point early deficit to a 14-point, 44-30 halftime lead. Twenty minutes later, Utah State walked off the court with a 79-53 lead.
“We couldn’t make a shot in the first seven, eight minutes. We kept our defensive intensity up, our ball pressure, our rotations, and we fought through some of that,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “And that’s what you have to be able to do if you want to win games. So yeah, I was pretty pleased.”
Even with their struggles on the defensive glass, the Aggies put together one of their best performances on defense all year. The 53 points is the second-lowest and .679 points per possession is the outright lowest of the year (narrowly beating out the .680 vs UTEP).
As part of his effort to galvanize the Aggies following their first loss of the year, Calhoun made a change in the starting lineup, the first alteration of the year not facilitated by injury. Garry Clark and Adlan Elamin started in place of Karson Templin and Tucker Anderson. Calhoun cited Elamin’s high potential as one of the reasons the true freshman was inserted into the starting five and played a season-high 20 minutes.
“At the end of the day, the guy’s 6-foot-9, 7-1 wingspan. He can make a shot,” Calhoun said. “He’s still learning the game, figuring out the physicality of the game. It’s kind of what I told him yesterday. It’s really up to him. I can teach him how to play with the ball, off the ball. But he’s got to dedicate himself to this game. And usually what you put into it is what you get out. And I think if he puts a lot into it he’s got a chance. He’s got a high ceiling. And by the end of the season, I think he’ll just get better and better.”
Elamin scored four points and had four rebounds, one assist and a steal in his starting debut. Clark also had four points in his first start, though overall his afternoon was frustrating. He was called for two fouls in the first 78 seconds, bringing Templin off the bench very quickly. Templin ended up providing an excellent spark of offense.
The manner in which Templin provided his scoring spark was a bit unique. He did have a few layups, including some in transition, but he also found his outside shot for the first time this year. Prior to Sunday, Templin had made none of his seven 3-point attempts, and hadn’t even attempted a shot from downtown in two games. But, finding himself open outside the arc on two different occasions, Templin let it fly and hit both of his first-half attempts.
Templin’s two made triples were a very curious outlier as he went a perfect 2-for-2 in the first half while the rest of his teammates, including snipers like MJ Collins, Adlan Elamin and Kolby King, were 0-for-8. Calhoun joked about Templin’s spike in 3-point shooting.
“We got Reggie Miller back,” Calhoun said. “I told the team in there that Templin’s 3-point shooting, with him making those two threes, it’s going to really expand everything.”
In addition to Templin’s scoring burst, the Aggies were led by their two consistent sources of offense, Collins and Mason Falslev. All three had reached double figures by halftime and were the only three to do so for USU. Falslev led the way with 22 points, along with six assists, five rebounds and four steaks. Collins had 18 points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals. Templin didn’t score in the second half, staying at the 12 points he had in the first and added two rebounds and a steal in his 17 minutes played.
Falslev has enjoyed a statistically impressive last few games. In his five most recent games, the junior has averaged 18.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 4.0 steals.
“Falslev is like me. He does not like to lose. He’s a fierce competitor. He’s a bad loser. The same why I am. So I think that’s why we’re a good match,” Calhoun said. “And he did a great job, I thought, leading our guys.”
Utah State will have a very light next couple of weeks. They will play only two games in the next 13 days, one against Illinois State on Dec. 13 and the Aggies’ conference opener against Colorado State on Dec. 20. Calhoun is eager to get more practice time with his team to continue to get better and prepare for what he said is a group of improving Mountain West teams.
“The Mountain West took a massive jump. Teams are getting better. Colorado State, New Mexico, Boise State,” Calhoun said. “We’ve got to do our part. And at the end of the day, if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. And I think our league now has seven teams, close to seven teams inside the top 100. So, it’s been a good run. And we got to get better because we know what’s ahead here. After one more game, the gauntlet starts.”
