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Emptying the Notebook on USU’s Saturday pre-Arizona Press Conference | Sports



SAN DIEGO — It’s been a rare pleasure for Utah State coaches to sit behind a microphone for a third time during the NCAA Tournament. Jerrod Calhoun arrived early to his Saturday-afternoon presser, briefly chatting with the attendees before heading up to officially begin the day’s festivities.

The questions ranged from his coffee intake and his playing days at Cleveland State, Utah State’s increased NIL budget, the plight of mid-majors in the NCAA Tournament, and (obviously) Utah State’s meeting with one-seeded Arizona on Sunday. Here’s what Calhoun, and his players, had to say on a variety of topics.

How the Aggies match up with Arizona

You can find a more in-depth look at the story of Utah State taking on Arizona on this site, but here’s the short version with what Calhoun had to say.

The Wildcats are one of the best teams in the country and Calhoun gave them their due credit for that.

“They’ve got a lot of talent. They’ve got at least two to four NBA guys. They’ve got size at every position,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “I would say the only other team right now in today’s college basketball is University of Michigan that looks anything like them, with their size.”

Programs like Utah State tend to look up at (literally in this case) to ones like Arizona. But Calhoun has a clear message for his team and is confident in their ability to play.

“It’s a 40-minute game. I think there’s going to be so much made of Arizona, rightfully so. But we have 29 wins for a reason,” Calhoun said. “I think our guys need to understand that. They need to lock in on the details of this scout and play our game. I think the teams that are successful this time of year have an identity. We have a true identity on both sides. And every team has different challenges. The challenge with these guys is their size. So we need MJ and Mason and Drake and all these guys, we’ve got to use our quickness against their size.”

Calhoun followed that up later by noting that his team’s unique style can be helpful in trying to pull off this upset.

“Our style is a little bit different than most,” Calhoun said. “So we have to play to our strengths. Our defense is very different. Our offense is very different. So it’s really about us, as crazy as that sounds. We’ve got to worry about us the next 24 hours.”

Not panicking in the Villanova game

Calhoun was asked a follow-up in regards to his comments on it being a 40-minute game. Specifically, the most recent game where his team was actually a pretty good exemplar of that mindset. Utah State suffered what might normally be a pretty demoralizing setback when it had a 22-13 advantage flipped to a 50-40 deficit by the early second half. But the Aggies overcame that to ultimately win by double digits.

The key to pulling it off according to Calhoun was to just not panic.

“The switch just went on with our team. Nobody panicked, don’t hit the panic button. Next play mentality,” Calhoun said. “And then you could see a couple guys had that look in their eye. It was winning time.”

Wrapped up in that answer was a long quote on MJ Collins and Mason Falslev.

“When you have big-time players and they’re really connected and they’re playing for something bigger than themselves, something special can happen,” Calhoun said. “There were some crucial plays in the game. I think one was we ran a cluster action on the right side and MJ got fouled. I thought that kind of got him going. When MJ has it going, I’ve said this all along. I think he’s one of the best players in the country. I think him and Mason Falslev are two of the best 1-2 punches in all of college basketball. Those guys carried us the last eight or nine minutes. His deflections, he got out, he made the and-1 steal. This is a guy that averaged eight points a game, or 7.5 a game last year, 20 minutes a game. It’s one of the best stories in college basketball.”

Utah State’s forwards role and motivation

Quite fittingly, for a presser leading up to a game where Utah State’s frontcourt may end up playing a bigger role than in any other game, three USU forwards — Adlan Elamin, Garry Clark and Zach Keller — were brought to speak with media.

Clark was asked about his recent play, where he’s elevated himself after a lackluster middle of the season. From the start of the new year until the end of February, Clark averaged just 3.6 points and 2.2 rebounds (this after averaging 8.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and posting three double-doubles in non-conference play). But in the last four games, Clark has played crucial minutes in the frontcourt to lead the Aggies to a Mountain West Tournament title and now an NCAA Tournament first-round victory.

How the 6-foot-8 forward has found the second wind in his senior season was a pretty simple explanation.

“I don’t want it to end,” Clark said. “We lose, we go home. This means the world to me, come out, give my team everything I’ve got every night and go from there.”

If Utah State wants to avoid an end to its season on Sunday, Clark and his fellow frontcourt teammates will have to play their best. Keller said it concisely.

“They’re a very big and physical team. Our job is to match that,” said USU forward Zach Keller. “And they’re obviously a top five rebounding team, that’s on our plate as well.”

Mid-Majors in the Sweet 16 and NIL

The 2025 NCAA Tournament was the first time since it expanded to 64 teams that no mid-major teams advanced to the Sweet 16. Utah State stands as the last hope of mid-majors not being shut out of the third round for a second year in a row. Calhoun was asked his thoughts on the plight of the little guys. His first thought was that there’s a price tag on making the later rounds.

“Most of the Power Fours you talk to, they say $10 million. And it’s not going down,” Calhoun said.

This drought of mid-major Cinderella teams has raised alarm from college basketball junkies. And Calhoun, though not as plugged into social media as most, can sense the feeling from basketball fans about the desire to see an underdog shine.

“I think America is dying for a mid-major,” Calhoun said. “If one of these three or four teams that are left can get to a Sweet 16, you instantly become America’s team. Everybody in the country roots for the underdog.”

The $10 million price tag on making the Sweet 16 isn’t one any mid-major is going to be able to write a check for, at least on a yearly basis, so teams have to get creative. Calhoun’s budget was $2.4 million (more on that in a moment). So he had to get creative with his roster building.

“We try to get old. That’s why we went out and got Kolby, we got MJ. We got Zach. If you look at the way we do things, we want to get old and stay old,” Calhoun said. “We want guys with experience. And we want guys that have been coached.”

That Calhoun was able to top $2 million in budget for his roster was remarkable given where the program was just a year ago in terms of fundraising. According to Calhoun, he had $800,000 for his 2024-25 roster. Last May, Calhoun said that budget was the lowest of any team that earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

In just a few months, Calhoun was able to triple his roster NIL budget. And there were a lot of people that had a hand in it, including Calhoun and his wife who donated $150,000 to the NIL fund.

“We knew as a staff we’ve got to spend about 70 percent of our time in the offseason fundraising. And that’s something I’ve always done at Youngstown State, Fairmont State and now Utah State,” Calhoun said. “Then I had to really convince my wife that, hey, if we’re going to ask people for money, we’ve got to donate ourselves. So we ended up doing $150,000. I think we were the second biggest donors this year, with NIL. I think it showed our donors and it showed our fan base how much our family’s invested in Utah State.”

Calhoun said he wasn’t trying to criticize the university, as that narrative has risen due to Calhoun repeatedly bringing up how his team hasn’t received any revenue-sharing money from the athletics department. And he said “the sky’s the limit” for Utah State.

“We’ve made significant strides. We’ll continue to work at it. It’s been a total group effort but a lot of work.”

Drake Allen’s performance and role

Calhoun has actually been asked quite a bit about his starting point guard. Drake Allen became a father last month and has probably not coincidently played significantly better in that time. Over his last nine games, Allen has averaged 11.3 points, 4.3 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 2.1 steals on 53% overall shooting and 48% from three over his last nine games.

“He’s been a changed person. You talk about what he’s talked about to the media. His ‘why’ has certainly changed,” Calhoun said. “He, most of the time, is passing the ball to MJ or Mason. He sees the game at a high level. He’s 6-4, 6-5. He plays above the rim. It was an absolute tragedy that he wasn’t on the all-defensive team in the Mountain West. We still don’t understand that. but he’s very disruptive. And he’s playing at a high level.”





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