In the final seconds of Utah State’s standalone Mountain West Friday-night clash with Colorado State, the home team Rams had the ball trailing by just two points, 63-61, to the visiting Aggies. USU had clawed its way back from being down by as many as 13 points in what had been a brutal road game in Fort Collins. One more defensive stand would send the Aggies back to their airport with a much-needed away-from-home victory. One make by the Rams would send Utah State packing with its first three-game losing streak in four years.
Colorado State opted to give the ball to their top offensive weapon, Kyle Jorgensen. The 6-foot-9 big, who had gotten injured early in the Ram’s humiliating 42-point defeat in Logan 34 days prior, had scored 24 points so far on the night. Jorgensen had made his first eight field goal attempts, including a career-best five 3-pointers.
All that stood between Jorgensen and an overtime-forcing bucket was Utah State junior forward Karson Templin, who guarded him on a baseline post-up 20 feet from the basket.
Jorgensen threw all he could at Templin, a face-up, jab-step, left hand drive to the edge of the key and then a turnaround fadeaway. But Templin stuck to the All-MW caliber forward the whole way, stonewalling the drive and heavily contesting the jumper which only grazed the far side of the rim.
Utah State forward Garry Clark secured the rebound and was also fouled. The Aggies then inbounded the ball to MJ Collins who hit a pair of free throws, his 16th and 17th points of just the second half (he would finish the game with 20 in total), to give Utah State a four-point lead, 65-61, with just two seconds to play. Colorado State had no means left to tie the game, and missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer anyway.
GUTSY team. GUTSY win.#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/q2BMX3IVNt
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) January 24, 2026
Aggies’ head coach Jerrod Calhoun called that defensive possession by Templin one of two plays that won the game.
“Karson Templin down the stretch had a championship chest. If you want to win championships, you got to play basketball with your chest, not your hands. Can’t foul,” Calhoun said. “He showed tremendous discipline on that last play. That was the game-winner.”
The other play Calhoun highlighted, as innocuous as it may have seemed to onlookers, was the inbound to Collins right after. Utah State had to get the ball to its top free throw shooter (Collins has made 83.3% of his free throws this year) to avoid having to sweat out another defensive possession.
“That’s a tricky situation,” Calhoun noted.
Calhoun’s players handled that tricky situation well by getting the ball to Collins, much to the head coach’s relief.
“I was just so thankful that (Collins) got the ball at the end,” Calhoun said. “When he got it, I knew it was going in.”
The end, as sweet as any victory is, tasted even better given how the previous 2.5 games had gone. Utah State picked up two losses in the last week, dampening what had been a dream 16-1 start to the season. Right after getting ranked, the Aggies had lost at Grand Canyon and then taken an embarassing home loss to UNLV.
Not only that, but the first half against Colorado State had been about as deflating as the two losses. Utah State scored just 25 points, their lowest first-half point total since its loss to South Florida in early December. The Aggies had shot 39% from the field, their star scorer in Collins went 1-for-5 from the field with just three points.
Conversely, Colorado State could hardly do any wrong. They had shot 68% from the field and 55% on 3-pointers. Pretty much anything the Rams put in the air went through the bottom of the net. As a result, the Rams held a 35-25 lead at halftime and early in the second half upped that advantage to 13 points, 40-27.
Coming out of the halftime break, the Aggies needed to find a way to get Colorado State in a cold spell and get their own offense rolling. For the latter of those two, all USU needed was to get its hands dirty in the key.
“We just made a conscious effort at a halftime of we got to get the ball in the paint,” Calhoun said. “We got to get Mason [Falslev] off of drives. I thought our (after timeout plays) were really good. I drew up things that we never even had in our package. The kids listened. They executed much better than [against] UNLV.”
Utah State ended up with 40 points in the paint, nearly double that of Colorado State (22).
Clark contributed a great deal in that regard as he had 10 points in the game, high highest scoring total in three weeks. His double-digit night came after playing only 11 minutes in the last two games combined. Calhoun kept the senior forward on the court for 28 minutes, including the crucial final minutes of the match.
Garry gets it done‼️ pic.twitter.com/pUd1KgY7bR
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) January 24, 2026
“We’ve talked about it the past week or two that Garry hasn’t been playing his best basketball. We had his back,” Templin said. “We know Garry’s a great player and he’s going to win his games, which he has. We needed him tonight and we said that before the game.”
On the defensive side, a lot of what Utah State needed was fewer breakdowns and a bit of patience for the Rams’ hot shooting to cool off a bit.
Jorgensen, who as a reminder hit his first eight shots including a heat-check 29-foot 3-pointer, finally began to look mortal. He missed his final five shots of the night. Colorado State made only three field goals in the final 11:30 of the game. And it didn’t come from any major adjustments by the Aggies. They stuck with their matchup zone, much maligned as it has been at times over the past two season.
“To be honest, we only made one adjustment, which was switching one cut in the matchup zone. We stayed in it because our defense was fine. We just had a few tiny breakdowns, which led to open threes,” Templin said. “I would give it all to my teammates. They were in the gaps. Our ball pressure was better in the second half and we just wheeled our way to the win. It’s hard for a guy to stay that hot for two halves. Jorgensen’s a heck of a player and I have a lot of respect for him. We shut him down in the second half, which was our goal.”
And it was this defense that really helped fuel the 40-point second half. Utah State forced 21 turnovers, six of those being committed by the otherwise stellar Jorgensen, which yielded 24 points. More especially, they helped jumpstart Aggie runs of 9-0, 8-0 and 7-0 throughout the second half. Each of those bursts helping trim the lead slowly down until the 7:18 mark when Utah State took the lead, 53-51, on an Elijah Perryman 3-pointer.
Elijah FOR THE LEAD‼️ pic.twitter.com/1Ir7ACiN2H
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) January 24, 2026
From there, though defense and a steady supply of paint scoring by Clark and Templin (who had 10 points himself) and some late free throws by Collins. Perhaps not the cleanest victory, but one which the Aggies will cherish for what they proved to themselves and what they avoided by not giving in when things had long since stopped going their way.
“Just a character win,” Calhoun said. “College basketball is difficult. It’s a long, grueling season. It’s not 12 games, it’s 31. You’ve got to stay the course. Very proud of the character of our team.”
