SALT LAKE CITY — Something about playing in neutral-site, standalone games venues has given Utah State the tendancy to build up double-digit leads and then come uncomfortably close to giving them away late in the game.
Five weeks ago in Frisco, Texas, the Aggies led VCU by 17 points before being forced to grind out a three-point win. Similarly, the Aggies led Illinois State by as many as 15 in the second half on Saturday. But in the final few minutes, USU had to fight and claw for key buckets and then make free throws down the stretch to come away with another close win, 83-78.
Illinois State took a very brief 2-0 lead one minute in, only for the Aggies to power ahead on a 7-0 run led by some unlikely scorers. Adlan Elamin, the freshman getting just his second start, had a fastbreak dunk and Zach Keller scored seven points in the first five minutes that powered both the aforementioned run and also the 13-6 lead the Aggies held shortly after the first media timeout.
“It felt nice out there. We had a huge crowd out there, felt like a home game. We started out strong,” Aggies’ forward Garry Clark said.
Clark had his own outsized impact on this game, getting back to his early-season form. Over the previous four games, Clark had averaged 5.0 points and 5.3 rebounds, that after going through the first five games of the year averaging 13.4 points and 9.8 boards per game.
In just the first half, Clark had six offensive rebounds, which matched his personal point total in the opening 20 minutes. He finished the afternoon with 18 points and eight rebounds.
“Really proud of Zach and Garry,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “Those two kids had great weeks in prep. You get rewarded when you practice and you worry about the right things. That’s really what basketball is about. The preparation, the three days leading up into this game was really elite for Garry and Zach.”
With Clark and Keller scoring well early, along with MJ Collins and Mason Falslev doing their usual stuff (Collins had 20 on the day with Falslev scorign 16), the Aggies built leads of seven points at halftime and were up 15 at the 11-minute mark of the second half. There was only one real obstacle.
Themselves.
Utah State committed 16 turnovers, tied for the second-highest total of the season. On possessions that didn’t include turnovers, the Aggies averaged 1.777 points per possession, thanks to shooting 52.5% overall and 38.9% from three. But those turnovers counted, and it forced cold spells into the Aggies’ offense that really shouldn’t have been otherwise.
“We wasted a lot of possessions,” Calhoun said. “Illinois State’s not a team that forces a lot of turnovers. So got to look at the tape, got to figure out our spacing. Usually when you turn a ball over, you have bad spacing or bad decision-making. So we have to improve on that.”
Illinois State shared in the Aggies’ monkey’s paw offense. The Redbirds shot 58.8% from the field, the highest allowed in an Aggie win since 2010, getting 21 points from wing Ty Pence and having four other players reach double figures in scoring. But they had even more giveaways than Utah State, coughing it up 17 times.
The Aggies were able to concentrate their scoring bursts a little better throughout the course of the game, building up those leads. But with Illinois State shooting as well as it did, the lead was not really safe. And one last cold spell from Utah State threatened what had seemed like an easy victory.
Only one time the whole night did Utah State miss more than three shots in a row. And it happened at pretty much the worst possible time. Spanning eight minutes in the last quarter of the game, the Aggies made one shot in nine attempts, which included five straight misses. Within that stretch, their lead plummeted from 10 points to just three, 75-72, with only 93 seconds to go in the game.
Calhoun opted to call a timeout after Falslev grabbed an offensive rebound from what had been the fifth straight miss by Utah Sate. The team needed a reset and a tough bucket. Coming out of that quick chat, it was Falslev and then Drake Allen who would provide exactly that. Twice.
Falslev started it off, straight out of the timeout, making a floater from the right side of the key over the outstretched arms of Illinois State’s 6-foot-9 forward Chase Walker.
Tough buckets in the clutch!@mason_falslev #AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/tjHOSe4xML
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) December 13, 2025
On the very next trip down the court, Allen his a right-handed layup from the left side of the rim to put the Aggies up 79-72 with 36 seconds on the clock.
“I thought those were two of the winningest plays,” Calhoun said. “Both kids are big, strong guards. They want to win. They care about the right things. They care about winning. When you care about the right things, good things will happen to you.”
Those two buckets put the game into take foul territory. Collins made things a little more tense than necessary, the 92% free-throw shooter missing a pair at the line in the final minutes, but Utah State held off the last-ditch rally to claim victory.
Saturday’s game (sort of) concludes the Aggies’ non-conference slate. They’ll take on Colorado State to open Mountain West play next Saturday. Utah State will have one more non-MW game nestled into its schedule, that one set for Feb. 14 against Memphis. For now, though, Mountain West play awaits.
