LOGAN — A 10-day break between games with Christmas smack dab in the middle sounds like the perfect schedule for a college basketball team during the holiday season.
But after Utah State’s dominant performance against Mountain West Conference rival Colorado State Saturday afternoon at the Spectrum, USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun was understandably feeling a little Scrooge-like.
“I wish we could play again tomorrow,” Calhoun said after the Aggies’ 100-58 dismantling of the Rams on Stew Morrill Court.
Winners of five straight games and one of the top offensive teams in the nation coming into the conference opener for both teams, Colorado State (9-3 overall, 0-1 in the Mountain West) shot just 26.1% in the first half and 36.7% for the game while being crushed on the boards by a 40-20 margin.
Meanwhile, the Aggies (10-1, 1-0) opened the contest with a 12-0 burst and never really slowed down. The home team held advantages of 27-5 and 37-11 in the first half, and took a 45-24 lead into halftime.
After shooting 60.7% in the first half, Utah State shot 66.7% in the second half while pulling away by as many as 45 points late in the game.
The final 42-point margin of victory was the largest ever by the Aggies in the 110-game, all-time series with Colorado State.
“We were up big on them last year, too,” Calhoun said, referencing the Aggies’ 22-point second half lead against the Rams at the Spectrum getting cut down to as few as seven points, “so we had five returning guys in the locker room who were very vocal about that...and when your blow teams out, your numbers look great.
“So we need to beat everybody we can, and if we have a lead, we can’t call anything off with the way the analytics world works. I mean, we jumped 11 spots (in the KenPom rankings) after just one game.”
Mason Falslev led the offensive onslaught for the Aggies with 18 points, despite being pulled with nine minutes left in the game. The junior guard went 7 for 9 from the floor and 2 for 3 from 3-point range and was the major catalyst behind USU’s game-opening tear, scoring 10 of the hosts’ first 12 points in just over four minutes of game time.
“It felt good,” Falslev said. “I don’t think we’ve had a great start in any of our games, so it felt really good, and hopefully we can continue it.”
Falslev’s fourth basket of Utah State’s early run fired up the sellout crowd of 10,270 and resulted in a timeout by CSU coach Ali Farokhmanesh with 15:41 left in the first half.
Unfortunately for the first-year head coach, while Falslev was driving to the basket at one end of the floor, his leading scorer, Kyle Jorgensen, was crumpled on the opposite baseline holding his left knee.
The sophomore forward, who was averaging 15.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game entering Saturday, had to be helped up the tunnel by some teammates.
Jorgensen returned later in the half on crutches, and he spent the rest of the game on the CSU bench with ice on his knee.
“Hopefully their big fella, Jorgensen, is OK. In my opinion, he’s one of the most improved guys in the country,” Calhoun said. “So things changed drastically when he was out, but I felt really good going into the game. I thought we had a great week of prep, and our kids played lights out.”
After Falslev came out in the first half, teammate MJ Collins Jr. took over the scoring load, putting up 11 straight points, including three consecutive 3-point attempts.
Though Collins picked up his second foul soon afterwards, keeping him on the bench for much of the half, the senior guard still finished with 15 points in just 22 minutes.
Freshman forward Adlan Elamin also scored a career-high 15 point for the Aggies, going 6 for 9 from the floor, while pulling down nine rebounds.
He also delighted the crowd and his coach with a block and some spectacular dunks.
“You know, he’s got those ‘Go Go Gadget’ arms,” Calhoun said, referencing the animated series “Inspector Gadget.”
“... He makes some unbelievable plays in practice that you just kind of shake your head at, and he’s only going to get better.”
Calhoun was also pleased with the performance of graduate point guard Drake Allen, who racked up 12 points (three 3-pointers) and six assists.
Junior forward Karson Templin (10 points, two 3-pointers) and senior guard Kolby King (10 points) also scored in double figures for the Aggies, with King also securing a team-high nine rebounds.
“It felt like last year all over again to start the game,” said Farokhmanesh, who was an assistant at Colorado State for seven seasons before being promoted to head coach following the departure of Nike Medved for Minnesota.
“I mean, that’s what we talked about, not letting that happen, but a ton of credit to them, they played well. I mean, the guys that haven’t made shots all year made shots for them, too. ... They not only played really well, but I thought that they controlled the game in terms of 50/50 balls and offensive rebounds. I don’t know if there was a stat today that we didn’t get dominated in.”
Coming into the game, Colorado State led the Mountain West in field goal percentage (54.3%) and 3-point percentage (44.7%) and was second in the conference in scoring (85.7 ppg).
But the Rams, whose two losses to Denver and Virginia Tech came by a total of four points, struggled with the Aggies’ full-court defense early on, and other than an 8-0 spurt late in the first half, could simply never get anything together.
Forward Carey Booth led CSU with 14 points, while Brandon Rechsteiner totaled 11 points and a team-best three 3-pointers.
Overall, the Rams shot 7 for 23 (30.4%) from beyond the arc.
“We knew that they’re a good 3-point shooting team, and that was our goal was not to let them back into the game by shooting 3s,” Falslev said.
Calhoun said the Aggies, who are 10-1 for the fourth straight season, will be off for Christmas until Dec. 26. They’ll then reconvene in Logan to prepare for their next game at Fresno State on Dec. 30.