In anticipation of Wednesday night’s clash with Wyoming, The HURD elected to turn the Utah State student section at The Spectrum into a “pinkout.”
And four minutes into the game, the Aggies surely had Wyoming head coach Sundance Wicks wishing he had access to an antacid the shade of Pepto Bismol at his disposal.
Utah State put together an early 13-0 run against the Cowboys to force Wicks into calling a timeout just over four minutes into the contest, and the Aggies never looked back, cruising to a 94-62 win.
The 32-point margin of victory over Wyoming was the largest by Utah State in the series, which dates back to 1930 with 93 total games.
“I was really proud of our guys’ effort tonight,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “I thought we did an incredible job of creating advantages and playing for each other.”
Senior guard Kolby King came off the bench to knock down four 3-point attempts and score a season-high 20 points for the Aggies (17-3 overall, 8-2 in the Mountain West), who shot 55% from the field as a team against the Cowboys (12-9, 3-7).
“Coach had an amazing game plan for this game to get into the middle of the paint and kick out for threes. And we had great space tonight,” said King, who finished 6 for 9 from the field, 4 of 6 from 3-point range and pulled down a team-best seven rebounds in 25 minutes. “You can see the results; we made shots.”
Utah State racked up 28 assists against a season-low five turnovers while facing Wyoming’s 3-2 zone defense, which provided ample room for the Aggies to successfully hoist up baseline threes from the corners. Utah State went 8 of 16 from 3-point range in the first half, and 13 for 34 from beyond the arc for the game, with many of those misfires coming over the final six or seven minutes when the Aggies were up by as many as 38 points.
In addition to King, the Aggies got strong first-half contributions from junior guard Mason Falslev (12 points, five assists, two steals) and freshman forward Adlan Elamin (nine points, five rebounds) on their way to putting together a 50-28 halftime lead. Senior forward Garry Clark, who sat much of the first half after picking up two fouls in one minute, bounced back to total 13 points and five rebounds while junior guard Tucker Anderson also came off the bench to knock down three 3-pointers and score 11 points.
MJ Collins Jr., the leading scorer in the Mountain West at 19.3 points per game, finished with 12 points and four assists while knocking down half of his 10 field goal attempts.
“I was really proud of MJ tonight,” Calhoun said. “All I heard from him all night was ‘Just keep shooting, Kolby. Just keep shooting.’ And he had four assists and no turnovers.
“The last four games he hasn’t been as good. And we went through stretches like that with Ian (Martinez) last year. ... But there’s a lot of things that shooters can do without shooting threes, and I thought he played one of his better games tonight.”
The Aggies outscored the Cowboys 14-2 on fast breaks, the USU bench dominated the visitors 54-13 and the rebounding battle was an even 36-36, which is significant since Wyoming came into the game first in the Mountain West with a rebound margin of +6.80 rebounds per game.
Senior guard Leland Walker put up 24 points and buried four 3-point attempts for the Cowboys, but freshman guard Nasir Meyer was the only other visiting player to score in double figures in what could be Wyoming’s final visit to the Spectrum with Utah State moving on to the Pac-12 next season.
Overall, the Cowboys shot just 35% for the game and finished 8 for 32 from 3-point range.
Wyoming did score the first basket of the game, but the Aggies scored 15 of the next 17 points, the majority of them by Falslev and Elamin. That meant the sellout crowd of 10,270 was behind the Aggies early on, and the hosts, who were wearing throwback uniforms similar to USU’s look from the late ‘80s, continued to add to their lead throughout the first half.
Utah State, which let a 14-point advantage in the second half get away from them in a home loss to UNLV on Jan. 20, quickly put the game away after halftime by coming up with three turnovers on Wyoming’s first three possessions. That defense helped spark a 12-2 run that left the Aggies up 62-30 just three minutes into the second half.
“Our guys were really on it tonight,” Calhoun said. “Not a lot of guys played a lot of minutes, so we can do more tomorrow at practice. It helps the entire organization in the planning when you don’t have to play guys 32 to 35 minutes, you know? So, the guys should feel pretty good about what they just did.”
That should help the Aggies heading into Saturday’s showdown with San Diego State at the Spectrum. The Aztecs (15-5, 9-1) won at Colorado State late Wednesday night to maintain their first-place hold in the Mountain West standings, just ahead of Utah State and New Mexico (17-4, 8-2), who are currently tied for second place.
