It took a few minutes to shake off some cobwebs and work through an injury-altered frontcourt rotation. But, led by a dominant effort from forward Kingston Tosi, Utah State ground out an overpowering 94-58 win over Idaho State in the 2026-27 season opener in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on Monday evening.
The Aggies were without starting center Connor Turnbull, who injured his foot less than 48 hours before the opener. They also didn’t get a strong scoring performance from star guard Mason Falslev, who got into foul trouble and ended the night by playing only 21 minutes and scoring just nine points (but did add nine rebounds, three assists and two steals).
Enter, the sophomore forward, Tosi. In his career debut after sitting out last season, the Arizona native scored 26 points on 11 of 16 shooting plus five rebounds, three steals and one assist. Tosi summed up his performance in part by saying he was “just looking for opportunities to score.”
“Cutting, that was a big emphasis on this game, cutting and just staying aggressive,” Tosi said further. “My teammates were finding me, and I was looking to get to the rim.
Tosi making things happen 𝑜𝓃 𝒷𝑜𝓉𝒽 𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓈 pic.twitter.com/5BHe6Zm5IL
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) November 3, 2026
Under the old eligibility rules, Tosi would be considered a redshirt freshman, and his 26 points would be a Utah State record for a freshman career debut. However, under the new five-years-to-play-five eligibility rules, Tosi is a sophomore, and his marks don’t count as freshman stats.
Still, his scoring punch and overall effort were welcome on a night when the Aggies made just five of their first 13 shots, including a stretch of going 3-for-11 from the field near the start of the game. USU head coach Ben Jacobson chalked up the slow start mainly as a span where “we threw four or five passes that were a little weird and missed a couple open threes.”
With the slow start — which included making just one of the first nine attempts from three — Utah State found itself battling for the lead in the middle of the first half. Doing so against an opponent the Aggies were projected to beat by 25+ points. Utah State didn’t establish a three-possession lead until the final two minutes of the first half, and the game was tied as late as the 10:33 mark of the opening period.
The Aggies turned things around by relying on their biggest strength: playing physical and dominating the paint. At halftime, with USU’s lead at only eight points, 37-29, Jacobson emphasized playing physical and having an attacking mindset.
“We want to play fast and physical. And then I talk a lot about attacking,” Jacobson said. “And that can be in transition. That can be in the half court, get into the offensive glass. Every opportunity we have to attack, we want to be doing it. And it took a little while tonight, as we saw, to really wear into them [down] and get to them on the boards at both ends. Once we did, it happened pretty fast.”
Despite not having their 6-foot-11 interior big, Turnbull, available, Utah State wore Idaho State down with relentless interior scoring. The Aggies took 22 of their 34 second-half shots at the rim, making 17 of those. That led to 60 total points in the paint, with 40 of those coming in the second half alone. Most of Tosi’s 26 were shots in the paint, though Will Hornseth’s 16 points were also a big addition to that interior scoring.
Those same interior shots hadn’t been working as well in the first half, and some early shot-blocking by Idaho State forward Kenyon DeMuynck stymied the Aggies’ early paint scoring. But they eventually worked past those, scoring around DeMuynck as well as getting him into foul trouble. He fouled out of the game with just under six minutes to play in the game.
BIG WILL WITH NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE!#ShowMe | @will_hornseth pic.twitter.com/EANUH3sml2
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) November 3, 2026
Jacobson said the process of learning to beat good shot-blocking from their opponents was a “great learning experience for our players.”
“We took a couple of shots that were really difficult, ended up getting blocked,” Jacobson said. “To have that happen and to be able to learn from it’s going to be great for this team so that we can take better advantage of those opportunities.”
The first critical point where the interior scoring came together, and Utah State began to break the game open, occurred in the early part of the second half. The Aggies went on separate runs of 6-0 and 8-0, inflating the halftime lead of eight up to 18 points by the under-12 media timeout.
Then, after a brief lull, the Aggies broke the floodgates with a streak of 10 consecutive made field goals. Most of those came in the paint, as per the theme of the game. But the hot streak opened things up for the three-ball as well. USU made just one 3-pointer for the first 29 minutes of the game, but sank two in the 10-shot streak alone.
There remain some blemishes that Utah State needs to polish out of its game. Namely, the 11 offensive rebounds allowed and 14 turnovers given up. Utah State only allowed 16 points from second-chance opportunities and giveaways combined, but Jacobson doesn’t want to be playing that game every night.
“Big picture, I would tell you that hope is not a strategy,” Jacobson said. “If you’re going to give up offensive rebounds and you’re going to put yourself in tough situations, you’re playing with fire. So we need to clean that up.”
Another concern is the health of Turnbull. The Evansville transfer was using crutches to get around and had a walking boot on his right foot. Jacobson did specify the nature of the injury, but said Turnbull would be out in the range of 2-3 weeks. That would put his return right around the time Utah State will travel to play in the Acrisure series and face two of its most difficult non-conference games against SMU and USC. For now, the Aggies will be without some things that only Turnbull can provide.
“He played great against Santa Clara. I think it was around 16 minutes and he had 16 points and eight rebounds and his passing is really good, especially at that center position,” Jacobson said. “So there’s a number of things that he does that we don’t also have in somebody else on the roster. So we’re going to miss the size, length and rebounding. Blocking a shot. Being able to throw a lob to him.”
For now, Utah State will prepare for its next opponent, Omaha, whom the Aggies will welcome to the Spectrum on Saturday at 2 p.m.
