After completing its sweep of the Mountain West regular season and conference tournament championships, the Utah State Aggies learned their placement in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Their reward for dominating the end of season in the Mountain West? Being a nine seed in the West Region and a matchup with eight seed Villanova in San Diego this Friday at 2:10 p.m. (Mountain Time).
The scene as Mountain West champions Utah State found out they’ll be a 9 seed facing 8 seed Villanova. pic.twitter.com/NRCVVswVXt
— Jason Walker (@jwalker_sports) March 15, 2026
The consensus of around 130 bracketologists projected the Aggies to be an eight seed. However, the committee opted to place Utah State a little lower than those projections. It’s a trend that has gone one for years now where the selection committe has routinely placed the Aggies in a seed below the consensus from experts.
Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun summed it up by calling his team’s placement as a nine seed “absolutely atrocious.”
“The one thing we don’t have is the, whatever they’re calling it, the Quad 1A wins. But we’ve got great metrics on both sides of the ball. We’re top 30 in offense, top 50 in defense. So I thought for sure a six or a seven. I was really hoping for one of those.”
As much as the seeding was a disappointment, Utah State is not going to sit around and mope. Preparation began immediately for the upcoming matchup with the Wildcats.
Well, almost immediately.
“I’m going to go down to Ruby’s and eat,” Calhoun said of his plans for after the watch party and press conference. “Then I’ll probably either spend the night here or take that film home with me. We’ll probably watch seven to 10 games.”
It’s a new challenge for Utah State. After months of facing familiar teams that, by the end of they year they’d faced three seperate times, the Aggies will now take on a team they know essentially nothing about.
“I haven’t seen him at all, honestly,” Calhoun said.
“I know they’re going to have a good point guard, talented point guard, [a] freshman, and that’s pretty much it,” USU guard MJ Collins said. “I think we watched a little bit of them earlier in the season as we were preparing for VCU. But outside of that, I really haven’t looked at them at all.”
What the team will find as they begin the deep dive into the only thing between them and the second round of the tournament (and likely matchup with one seed Arizona) is a Villanova team that finished third in the Big East with a 24-8 overall record and 15-5 mark in conference play. And while the storied program won two national titles across a run of 16 NCAA Tournament appearances from 2005 to 2022 (all under Jay Wright), the Wildcats are actually just getting back to the tournament after a three-year drought.
Villanova’s first-year head coach Kevin Willard has begun the process of reviving a great program. He brought a long run of coaching success to Villanova, having made the tournament last year as the coach of Maryland and in 2023. He previously qualified for five tournament appearances at Seton Hall.
The talented freshmen point guard Collins alluded to is Second Team All-Big East and All-Freshman Big East selection Acaden Lewis. The 6-foot-2 native of Washington DC averaged 12.3 points, 5.3 assists and 3.1 rebounds. But he’s one of five Villanova players that averaged at least 10 points per game and the team has a sixth player that averaged 9.2 points per game. The scoring depth is something Utah State hasn’t faced a ton of this season, but has faced recently. Most notably, San Diego State who has six players averaging at least 7.5 points per game and none above 13.1.
Villanova had two other players earn All-Big East honors, those being 6-foot-10 forward Duke Brennan and 6-foot-4 wing Tyler Perkins. Brennan averaged a double-double this season, posting 12.4 points and 10.3 rebounds per game while Perkins led the team in scoring at 13.7 per game which he paired with 5.4 rebounds per night.
Likely a big part of why Calhoun wanted to get a six or seven seed comes from the difficulty that comes if you make it to the second round. Winners of the eight/nine matchup are greeted 99.9% of the time by a one seed, teams that enter as overwhelming favorites to make it deep into the tournament. The difficulty of making a run as an eight or nine seed is evident in that 10, 11 and 12 seeds have better odds to make the Sweet 16, based on historicaly win percentages, even though teams on those seed lines have worse chances to win their first round games.
However, there’s the more optimistic view that Collins took, even though he was also hoping for a six or seven seed.
“We still have a chance to make something happen,” Collins said. “And who wouldn’t want the top dogs after we take down Villanova? That’s what it’s about, make it to the Sweet 16. And at that point, we’re the number one seed in my eyes after we take care of business.”
