Normally used as a noun when referring to the Fresno State basketball team, the word Bulldog felt more like a verb for the Aggies Saturday night at the Spectrum in Logan.
An alternative rodeo term for steer wrestling, bulldogging the Mountain West’s cellar dwellers proved to extremely difficult for first-place Utah State despite playing on its home court in front of 9,356 fans.
Down by 17 points in the first half, the Aggies rallied back to lead by as many as 14 in the second, but Fresno State still proved extremely difficult to wrestle to the ground down the stretch, getting back to within three with 16 seconds left before Utah State finally managed to secure an 89-83 win that left first-year head coach Jerrod Calhoun feeling very unsatisfied.
“Tonight was the first night that I felt like I was coaching effort, and I haven’t had to do that in the first 15 games,” Calhoun said.
“... I mean, it was ugly,” he added. “That was an ugly game.”
Utah State (14-1, 4-0) came into Saturday’s game flying after taking three straight road games at St. Mary’s, San Diego State and Nevada.
Conversely, Fresno State (4-11, 0-4) was 1-7 away from its home court, and new head coach Vance Walberg and leading scorer Amar Augillard had a parting of ways just before Christmas.
But Calhoun said he “saw this game coming,” and even said so to USU athletic director Diana Sabau on Friday. In fact, he was so concerned about the Bulldogs that he ended up showing his team some of the key plays from Utah State’s last-second victories over Fresno State last season when the Aggies were coached by Danny Sprinkle and led by former stars Darius Brown and Great Osobor.
“I told Diana I was a little concerned with this game after five days on the road .... a little fatigue,” Calhoun said. “It was tough, but we found a way to win. I’m proud of the guys, but it certainly wasn’t our best outing, to say the least.”
Utah State forward Karson Templin, who played a big role in the Aggies’ second-half rally Saturday, ended up scoring 18 points and pulling down 10 rebounds for his first career double-double.
Graduate guard Dexter Akanno also stepped up in the second half, scoring eight of his 13 points after intermission. The Aggies’ two leading scorers this season, Ian Martinez and Mason Falslev, totaled 16 and 14 points, respectively, but they were a combined 10 for 25 from the field.
The most crucial performance of the game for the home team went to Drake Allen, who racked up 11 points and 11 assists in 25 minutes. The graduate point guard from Utah County suffered a separated shoulder early in USU’s home loss to UC San Diego on Dec. 17 and had only played three minutes since.
“I thought he and Dex won the game tonight; those two kids were tremendous,” Calhoun said of Allen, who was initially expected to be out of action for at least a month. “Drake got 11 points and 11 assists and he’s still not healthy, but he’s done an incredible job of living in the facility, and our guys do a great job of taking care of their bodies.
“... There’s a real commitment to that here, and it helped Drake. If we don’t have him tonight, we don’t win the game.”
Utah State, which trailed 42-39 at halftime, ended up shooting 48.4% as a team from the field, including a 9-for-26 performance from 3-point range.
The Aggies didn’t shoot very well from the free-throw line — 18 of 27 overall — but 23 of those attempts came in the second half.
The Bulldogs, who were huge underdogs coming into the game, gave Utah State all it could handle, thanks primarily to the dribble drive motion offense installed by Walberg.
One of the offense’s original innovators, the 68-year-old has been using it for nearly three decades at his various coaching stops. Junior forward Alex Crawford benefitted the most for Fresno State, scoring a game-high 26 points on 10 of 13 shooting.
Senior guard Jalen Weaver added 16 points, and junior guard Jasir Tremble finished with 12 points thanks to four 3-pointers.
“You’ve got to give Jasir the credit,” Walberg said. “He hit some nice shots early for us and got us going. They don’t have a traditional defense, so it’s not a traditional offense you can run against them.
“We just worked on corner cuts, 45 cuts, hitting the middle, hitting the pocket, and just seeing what we could do, and I thought Mor (Seck) did a nice job early of catching the ball in the middle, making a couple of nice passes and moving the ball. We just did a good job hitting shots early there. Unfortunately we just didn’t keep it going.”
After knocking down 5 of 11 3-point attempts in the first half, the Bulldogs were just 2 for 9 from beyond the perimeter in the second half. Overall, Fresno State shot 48.3% for the game, was 18 of 26 from free throw line and outrebounded Utah State by a 40-35 margin.
Utah State, which trailed by as many as 18 points at San Diego State before rallying back, was down 32-15 with about eight minutes left in the first half Saturday.
“We obviously don’t like being in that position, but we’ve been in that position before at San Diego State so we knew we could battle back,” Templin said. “We have tough guys, but we have to get better in the first half. We’ve got to get off to better starts, that’s what it comes down to.”
Templin added, “They played harder than us. It seemed like they wanted it more than us in the first half. We’ve just got to come out with more energy, really lock in on our assignments and who we’re guarding, and be sharper. That’s all on us.”
Calhoun was so frustrated with his team that he picked up his first technical foul as head coach of the Aggies midway through the first half while arguing for a traveling call against the Bulldogs on a breakaway score.
“I purposely got the technical, but it didn’t do any good, to be honest,” Calhoun admitted. “I was trying to motivate our guys. I think I’ve gotten four technicals in my entire career. I’m usually not like that, but I couldn’t get any energy out of our group, and I thought that might fire them up.”
Utah State finally managed to put a run together late in the first half, outscoring Fresno State 24-10 over the final eight minutes before intermission.
The Aggies then got down by as many as five points early in the second half before a quick, 8-2 burst highlighted by a layup in transition from Allen gave the home team its first lead at 53-52 with 14:38 remaining.
The Aggies ended up posting their biggest lead of the game at 78-64 with 6:11 left on a basket by Aubin Gateretse during a dominant stretch that included a spectacular drive down the line and dunk by Akanno that electrified the crowd and left Templin clearly stunned.
“I’ve seen him do that before in practice, but I hadn’t seen him do that in a game yet,” Templin said. “That was unbelievable. Dex got up on that one.”