It was the first last home game of a season for first-year Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun, and Aggie fans obviously hope it’s not his last.
Utah State completed its 2024-25 regular season with an 87-47 drubbing of Air Force at the Spectrum on Saturday afternoon. The victory left the Aggies (25-6 overall, 15-5 in the Mountain West) in third place in the conference heading into next week’s Mountain West postseason tournament in Las Vegas.
“It’s a unique opportunity to be the coach here and to have 25 wins,” said Calhoun, who was hired last spring after seven successful seasons at Youngstown State. “I think our guys should be really, really proud.
“This game really, really concerned me, but I think this game should solidify us into the NCAA Tournament. I think our numbers are good enough. If you look at where our numbers are right now, we’re an NCAA Tournament team.”
Utah State, which held a 50-23 advantage at halftime and led by as many as 47 points in the second half, dominated the Falcons (4-27, 1-19), who have lost four straight games and 20 of their last 21 contests.
The No. 11 seed in the MW tournament, Air Force will face No. 6 UNLV (17-14, 11-9) at 5 p.m. MT next Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center in the first round.
The winner of that contest will play the No. 3 Aggies Thursday at 9:30 p.m. MT.
“It’s on to UNLV, right? But there’s a good chance we’re going to play Air Force. Who knows?” Calhoun said. “But I’ve got to get my mind wrapped around UNLV because I know Air Force. I spent the past three days getting very little sleep.”
Saturday’s 40-point win was a much-needed palette cleanser for the Aggies, who dropped two road games last week at Boise State and Colorado State.
The 99-63 defeat at Fort Collins was particularly horrific, and Utah State didn’t have another game for a whole week to try to get back on track.
“None of us have been happy. Let’s just call it like it is,” Calhoun said. “... It’s really about our defense, and not being a finesse team, right? In March, you have to be an elite, physical, tough-minded team.”
The Aggies, who won the first game of the season series against Air Force, 87-58, on Jan. 25 in Colorado Springs, forced the Falcons into 19 turnovers Saturday and held their visitors to just 41.5% shooting, including a 6-for-26 performance from 3-point range.
“I think it was a big defensive game for us just being able to be physical and guard the ball, and then that helps us get out in transition and we haven’t been out in transition for a couple of weeks now which feels weird, so it was good to get back into it,” senior guard Drake Allen said.
Utah State racked up 13 fast break points to zero for the Falcons, who only got three points from leading scorer Ethan Taylor. The senior guard, who had 18 points in the first meeting with USU, finished the game just 1 for 7 from the field in 35 minutes of playing time.
“I voted for Taylor as a third-team, all-league guy,” Calhoun said. “He’s a tremendous player, and we did a really, really good job on him.”
Calhoun credited associate head coach Eric Haut, assistant coach Mantoris Robinson and director of video and analytics Max Bent for tweaking some things defensively for the Aggies after suffering back-to-back losses for the first time last week, and he was obviously pleased with the results.
“I’ve really challenged them the last four or five days,” Calhoun said. “They needed to come to me with answers and solutions to this defense, and a big part of it is attention to detail throughout the week on who does what, and Taylor’s a really, really good player, so if he’s in your area, you gotta know where he is...and we did a better job tonight of that tonight. We just had more awareness.”
Freshman forward Will Cooper, who came into Saturday’s contest averaging just 5.4 points per game, put up 16 points against the Aggies, but he was the only Falcon to reach double figures in scoring.
Utah State sophomore guard Mason Falslev paced Utah State offensively with 18 points and seven rebounds. Falslev, who knocked down 8 of his 10 field-goal attempts, also finished with four assists and two steals.
“That’s Mace; that’s what he does,” Allen said. “Last week was kind of weird week for everybody with this two games, so we had to take a step back and fix a couple of things, but that’s Mace.
“That’s what he does every single night is play as hard as he can, and that’s what happens when you play hard. You get rebounds, you get assists and you get points, so he deserves it.”
The Aggies, who essentially put the game out of reach with a 13-0 run in the first half that broke a 3-3 tie, knocked down their first five shots against the Falcons and ended up shooting 70.4% in the first half.
The home team was also 10 for 15 from 3-point range in the first half and ended up 15 for 32 (46.9%) from beyond the perimeter while also going 10 for 11 from the free-throw line.
“They played unbelievable, obviously,” Air Force head coach Joe Scott said. “They’re a really good team and have really good pieces. They shot the ball like you can’t believe tonight, so when a team shoots like that, 10-15 in the first half, it makes it extremely difficult, so you’ve got to give them tons of credit.
“They had time off with a bye and it was a must-win game for them, so obviously they were ready and prepared to play, knowing how important the game was.”
In addition to Falslev, the Aggies got significant offensive output from graduate guards Ian Martinez (14 points) and Dexter Akanno (10 points). That duo, along with graduate center Aubin Gateretse (eight points, three rebounds) was honored just after the conclusion of the game as part of this year’s Senior Night.
Martinez, who started out at Utah before going to USU via Maryland prior to the 2023-24 season, received the biggest ovation of the night from the crowd of 8,534, but it was Akanno who provided most of the drama.
The Oregon State transfer came into the game needing nine points to push him over 1,000 points for his career, but didn’t reach that threshold until he knocked down a 3-pointer with 5:13 left.
“That was huge; 1,000 points is hard to do,” Allen said of Akanno’s milestone. “People don’t realize how hard that is to do.”