Just a few days after forcing a three-way tie for first place in the Mountain West, Utah State broke the tie with one of those teams by blasting New Mexico in the Pit 86-66. It’s the first win by the Aggies on the Lobos’ home court since 2022 and it also ended a 23-game home winning streak for UNM, which was the fourth-longest active home winning run in the nation.
“To come in the Pit and win by 20 and hold them to 66 is a tremendous team win,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said.
Mason Falslev led the Aggies with 19 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals in only 27 minutes as he dealt with some minor foul trouble in the middle of the game. MJ Collins had 14, pairing that with three assists and two steals.
The final score hides what was a mostly competitive first half. Utah State took an early lead and even built up an eight-point advantage in the middle of the opening half. However, the Lobos rallied to take a 33-31 lead with two minutes left until the break.
From that point on, the Aggies controlled the game. They ended the first half on a 5-0 run, including a buzzer-beating putback by Garry Clark to carry a 36-33 lead into the locker room.
New Mexico star freshman Jake Hall walked into halftime with a solid nine points, including a pair of made 3-pointers. He’d been crucial in the Lobos’ 9-2 start in conference play. In his previous nine games, Hall had averaged 4.1 made 3-pointers per game, shooting 57.8% on his long-distance shots.
The Aggies put everything into ensuring Hall did not emulate his successes over the last month. In the second half, Hall scored one point and only attempted one 3-pointer.
“We just weren’t gonna let Jake Hall beat us,” Calhoun said. “There was gonna be awareness everywhere he was.”
New Mexico as a team went 0-for-7 from distance in the second, ending the night shooting just 3 of 13 on threes in total. It’s tied for the lowest made 3-pointers by the Lobos in a game this year and is the third-worst shooting percentage for them this season.
That defense helped USU quickly balloon its small halftime advantage up to double digits by the first media timeout of the second half. The Aggies outscored the Lobos 13-5 in the first four minutes of the second half. And over the next six minutes they rinsed and repeated that formula to double a 10-point lead up to 20 as the game ticked under 10 minutes to play.
Utah State being able to stack a 5-0 run here and 6-0, then 7-0 runs in the second half is remarkable enough considering the venue and caliber of opponent. But it was also impressive given the serious depth concerns that developed in the frontcourt mid-game. Zach Keller, who had been putting in some solid minutes, sprained his ankle while fighting for a rebound and had to leave the game at the 8:33 mark of the first half. That left the Aggies with only two bigs in the rotation, Karson Templin and Garry Clark. But both bigs got into foul trouble, Clark even fouling out of the game. Templin had to play the final 5:25 of the night with four fouls to his name.
“Our message was today was just play like men,” Calhoun said. “We’re the older team. That’s how we recruit. We want to play like men on the road. And I thought we got a lot of efforts from a lot of guys.”
One of the key players to step up as the Aggies cycled through bigs was forward Adlan Elamin. The freshman secured a career-best 10 rebounds, which paired with his 11 points gave him his first career double-double.
“He was everywhere,” Calhoun said. “His long arms just kept grabbing (rebounds), whether it was a defensive or an offensive rebound. Made huge timely rebounds.”
“My coaches have been on me to (get rebounds). They think I can get every board,” Elamin said. “So I just had the mindset to go get every board. And they weren’t really boxing me out too much, and I once i seen that I just kept crashing.”
And even though Templin had four fouls, he found ways to maintain a high impact for the team. He hit a 3-pointer in the corner that kicked off a 12-2 run for the Aggies that pushed their lead from 52-42 up to 64-44. He also posted a couple solid put-back slams that were part of USU’s 14 second-chance points. Templin joined Falslev, Elamin and Collins as players who scored in double figures by putting up 12 points with five rebounds.
*cue the song*#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/IRSwdTyCIr
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) February 5, 2026
HOW WE FEELING??#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/r1fWjTXqrB
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) February 5, 2026
Utah State held off all late attempts by the Lobos to make the game competitive, which largely consisted of generating lots of trips to the free throw line. New Mexico attempted 30 free throws, making 21. Tomislav Buljan led the way for them, scoring 17 points and going 9 of 14 on free throws. But at no point in the second half did New Mexico manage a run better than 4-0. And every time they did have one of those runs, the Aggies were ready with their own scoring bursts to keep the margin firmly in double digits, and usually closer to 20 than 10.
With the win, the Aggies are only in a two-team tie for first place as they and San Diego State are 10-2 in conference play. Utah State, though, holds a tiebreaker over the Aztecs for now courtesy of its win last Saturday in the Spectrum (the rematch between USU and SDSU in San Diego will be on Feb. 25). The Aggies’ next game will be in Laramie for the second leg in the season series against Wyoming.
One key factor in USU’s upcoming game against the Cowboys will be the status of Keller. The senior returned to the bench during the second half without any visible brace or ice taped to his ankle, a good sign. Though his exact status will have to wait for further evaluation.
“We’ll look at it in the morning,” Calhoun said. “He’ll get treatment tonight and hopefully he’ll be ready to go. He acted like he could have went back in. I wasn’t super confident with it.”
