LOGAN — Missed free throws, poor bench play, cold 3-point shooting in the second half and poor defense in the clutch doomed Utah State to an 86-76 home defeat to UNLV on Tuesday in what head coach Jerrod Calhoun called the team’s “worst loss since I’ve been the coach here.”
Utah State started the season 16-1 overall and 6-0 in Mountain West play. But in the last two games, they’re 0-2 with a loss to Grand Canyon last Saturday and now a defeat at the hands of UNLV. Junior forward Karson Templin, along with Calhoun, tied the recent poor performances to the team’s practices.
“We need to have better practices, myself included. We’ve been lackadaisical, and there’s no excuse for it,” Karson Templin said. “We just need to play harder in practice and tighten up some of our stuff. And it’s totally on us players.”
At the start of Tuesday’s game, the team was far from lackadaisical. Calhoun’s starting lineup of Drake Allen, Mason Falslev, MJ Collins, Adlan Elamin and Zach Keller got out to a quick start, opening up a 9-0 lead. But as the teams began cycling to their bench units, the tides quickly turned. UNLV went on a 12-3 run to tie the game up. The same story played out to start the second half. USU outscored the visitors 18-6 out of the halftime break and took a 14-point lead with 12:44 left in the game. And then UNLV rallied back in the span of six minutes and taking the lead as the game transitioned into its late stages.
The Aggies’ starters were just about all in the positive in plus-minus (Mason Falslev the only exception at -4) with every player that came off the bench being in the negative.
“It was one of the worst bench performances I’ve seen in a long time,” Calhoun said. “We had two kids that were minus 13 at halftime on the scorecard. Just horrific, horrific effort tonight from the bench.”
With the bench units unable to maintain the leads built by the starters, Calhoun made just one substitution in the final nine minutes of the game. A no-sub late-game has worked for the Aggies before. In their win over San Jose State, Calhoun didn’t sub anyone out in the final 10 minutes (except when Falslev fouled out with 24 seconds to play) during which time USU turned a tie ballgame into an 18-point win.
But the same strategy wouldn’t save them in this game. Late in the game Utah State appeared tired, looking very much like a team that had played four games in 10 days and three games in the last seven days.
Conversley, UNLV stepped up in the clutch, making 12 of its final 15 field goal attempts. The Aggies made just 6 of 21 shots in that same timespan. And there wasn’t anything particularly special about the way the Rebels went about getting those shots. Most of the time it was isolating the 6-foot-9 Tyrin Jones or 6-foot-7 Kimani Hamilton on the right wing and let them go to work against Aggie defenders that were either smaller or slower. And most of the time it worked, producing either a made shot, free throws or a putback.
“They were running the same play over and over, driving it right every time. We just didn’t stop them,” USU forward Karson Templin said.
Hamilton, despite playing only 12 minutes due to foul trouble, scored 10 points, eight of those in a six-minute span in the second half. Jones had 20 with 12 of those coming in the final stretch.
Some of UNLV’s great offense can be attributed to players making shots they normally haven’t. Jones entered the game with a 48.8 free throw percentage and made 10 of 12 attempts at the charity stripe. Walter Brown had made just one 3-pointer all season but hit a pair against the Aggies. UNLV as a team were 327th in 3-point percentage, but made 7 of 14 throughout the game.
But for all that supposed luck, much of UNLV’s ability to score 86 points — the most any team has put up against USU this season — came down to the Aggies’ lack of positional size and athleticism in the frontcourt. Calhoun, much as he did late last season, made a plea for funds to get more size on his roster.
“We need more (revenue sharing) money. We need the school to give us some money, to be honest with you, we need more size,” Calhoun said. “We went out and raised [money from] all the donors. So I’m hoping our plan moving forward with rev-share can allow us to do that, get some positional size because we need help down there.”
In the meantime, Utah State needs to find a way to fix the issues that have plagued them for two games. Both Grand Canyon and UNLV were able to bully the Aggies in the paint with size and/or speed in the frontcourt. Some players have made improvements. Adlan Elamin tied his career-high with 15 points while also grabbing four rebounds and recording two steals and an assist. He was also second on the team in plus-minus with the Aggies being +5 with him on the court (Drake Allen led USU as a +6).
“(Elamin is) getting better and better. He’s got a motor. He can make a shot,” Calhoun said. “He looks like those UNLV guys. He looks like Grand Canyon guys. He’s big. He’s long. He’s athletic.”
Most of the rest of the frontcourt either didn’t play many minutes or struggled. Karson Templin was -15 in his 21 minutes despite 10 points, three rebounds and five fouls drawn on UNLV players (many during rebounding situations). Garry Clark played a mere six minutes and was -5 while on the court. Zach Keller played 17 minutes but had a limited statistical impact with no points scored and three rebounds.
One of the more vexing issues of the night was free throws. In the first half, Utah State drew 14 fouls on UNLV and ended up taking 22 free throws in that half alone and 31 throughout the game. But in both the first and second half the Aggies couldn’t sink those shots. They went 17 of 31 on their freebies, marking the most missed free throws in a game this year and (naturally) the lowest free throw percentage of the season. Every player who stepped up to the line missed at least once.
Although the Aggies stacked misses at the charity stripe, Calhoun mostly dismissed it as something he can’t do much to fix and thus won’t wring his hands over it too much.
“Stew Morrill told me this, you don’t talk about shooting slumps or free throws with kids. Because it just gets in their head,” Calhoun said. So I just try not to even talk about it. You know, if we miss them, we miss them.”
And from Templin’s post-game comments, it seemed the misses were largely a mental thing.
“Sometimes you get in your head. And we just got to get in the lab and just rep it out. Keep shooting them,” Templin said. “We’ll be better next time.”
