Shortly after the San Jose State basketball team arrived in Cache Valley in preparation for Wednesday night’s game at Utah State, the student-led group of Aggie-spirited athletic fans known as The HURD attempted to make amends for a previously unfulfilled promise made to Spartans head coach Tim Miles.
Now in his fourth season at SJSU, Miles was gifted a half-gallon of chocolate Aggie Ice Cream when he arrived at his hotel on Tuesday, and he took the time to thank The HURD and post a photo of himself on social media enjoying some of the frozen treat.
But by halftime of Wednesday’s game against the Aggies, the veteran coach was suffering from something far more painful than an ice cream headache.
Utah State absolutely dominated San Jose State, 105-57, at the Spectrum to record the largest margin of victory in a conference win in school history, bettering a 45-point win against the Spartans on Dec. 21, 2020.
“It was just a disappointing night for San Jose State,” Miles declared. “I thought that Utah State was clicking on all cylinders. They were great the way they shot the 3. I think six different guys hit 3s in the first half, and that really set the tone for the whole game.”
Led by graduate guard Ian Martinez’s game-high 22 points, the Aggies held a 47-24 advantage at halftime and led by as many as 51 points in the second half. All 12 USU players to see action scored at least 2 points, with guard Mason Falslev (13 points), guard Dexter Akanno (13 points), wing Tucker Anderson (11 points) and guard Deyton Albury (10 points) all scoring in double figures.
Utah State, which was coming off a tough, 3-point loss at New Mexico on Sunday, shot 63.6% from the field in the second half, 51.5% for the game and knocked down 13-of-25 (52%) 3-point attempts.
“I thought our guys didn’t let one loss correlate to another,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “We’ve talked about mindset for the last 48 hours. Credit to the leaders of our team, Ian and Mason and Drake (Allen), some of those guys that have been around college basketball. They understand the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
“They had the attention to detail, the defense, the physicality, the rebounding in this game. I’m really proud of our guys.”
The lopsided victory helped Utah State (23-4 overall, 13-3 in the Mountain West) hold onto second place in the conference standings. But the Aggies did pull within a game of first-place New Mexico (22-5, 14-2) thanks to the Lobos’ 86-78 loss at Boise State Wednesday night.
Utah State has four regular-season games left, starting with Saturday’s home game against San Diego State. The Aztecs (18-6, 11-4) are currently tied for third place with Colorado State (17-9, 11-4).
San Jose State (12-16, 5-11), which hasn’t won in the Spectrum since 1982 and is 4-42 all-time in Logan, gave the Aggies a little scare in the first game of the season in San Jose before losing 85-78 on Jan. 7. But after taking a 4-2 at the start of the rematch, not much went right for Miles’ club as USU scored 10 of the game’s next 12 points.
Former Aggie Josh Uduje, who notched those first two field goals for the Spartans, missed his next 12 shots of the game and San Jose State’s leading scorer at 16.4 points per game ended up scoring just 4 points in 31 minutes. It was a disappointing return to the Spectrum for Uduje, who was named the co-Sixth Man of the Year last season in the Mountain West after playing a key role for the Aggies in their conference championship run under former head coach Danny Sprinkle.
Uduje initially announced he was staying at USU for another year after Calhoun was hired last April, but then he switched his commitment in May and ended up signing on with the Spartans. Uduje, who was still greeted warmly by the Spectrum crowd of 8,921 on Wednesday, played against the Aggies despite missing the SJSU’s two previous games with elbow and back injuries.
“I thought the crowd really treated Josh with the respect that he deserves; that team last year was pretty special,” Calhoun said. “... As long as I’m the coach at Utah State, which is hopefully a long time, he’s always welcome here. He’s a class act kid.
“... But he’s been having some back issues and hasn’t played in a couple of weeks, but we knew he’d play in this game,” Calhoun added. “Josh is a big focal point of their team, and he gets 16 points a night. So, we wanted to crowd him and make life hard for him. And yeah, he struggled. Just 2 for 14. But credit our guys and our defense.”
Overall, San Jose State shot just 36.8% from the field, were 9 for 32 (28.1%) from 3-point range and committed 13 turnovers to just six for the Aggies.
The Spartans, whose second-leading scorer Will McClendon missed Wednesday’s game with a knee injury, got 15 points each from graduate guard Donovan Yap and junior forward Sadraque Nganga.
“One thing we’ve really talked about lately is defensive stamina, and there were times in the second half we gave up some easy points,” Anderson said. “But we know what we’re capable of, and we’re trying to focus on our strengths and coming out in the second half, not looking at the score and just playing as hard as we can for 20 minutes in the second half.
“We seem to have some really good first halves, but second half defense is where we’ve struggled sometimes. So, we’ve got to keep getting better at that.”
Anderson, who went 3-for-6 from 3-point range against the Spartans, credited Allen for setting him up for an easy dunk in transition in the second half, as well as for a behind-the-back pass from the top of the key that Anderson turned into a 3-pointer on the following possession.
“I think Drake’s been almost like a big brother to me,” Anderson said of Allen, who also flew down the lane in the second half for the most spectacular dunk of the night. “He’s the guy that’s always talking to me and always tells me to keep shooting, and he gave me some good passes tonight.”