After eliminating their two rivals from the Silver State over the past two days, the Utah State Aggies will go for the gold Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas.
Top-seeded Utah State beat Nevada 79-66 Friday night in the semifinals of the Mountain West tournament to earn a spot in the championship game against the winner of the late game between No. 2 San Diego State (21-10) and No. 3 New Mexico (23-9).
“We’re playing for another title,” USU coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “Obviously, we won the regular season … but we’re also playing for NCAA Tournament seeding. We’re trying to get up the seed line and make a run, but to have a chance to play (for) another title is pretty awesome.”
The Aggies (27-6), who will tip off in the title contest at 4 p.m. Mountain Time Saturday, surrendered a 7-0 run to the No. 5 Wolf Pack (20-12) to fall behind 12-11 midway through the first half, forcing Calhoun into calling a timeout.
But Utah State responded by scoring 12 of the game’s next 14 points and led the rest of the way, taking a 39-32 into halftime and pulling away by as many as 19 points in the second half.
As usual, the Aggies’ defense played a key role in their victory.
The Wolf Pack, who won the last meeting between the two teams 80-77 in Reno on Feb. 21, shot just 40.7% as a team Friday, including a 5-for-19 performance from 3-point range.
Nevada also committed 15 turnovers, with Utah State scoring 22 points off of those miscues.
“Our defense the past two games has been terrific — 60 last night, 66 tonight and we held them to 40% from the field,” Calhoun said.
“When we guard, we’re as good as anybody in the country, and we did that all year. We just hit a little bit of a wall there at the end of the year, but we’re getting our momentum back.”
Adlan Elamin led the way offensive for the Aggies, matching his career high with 15 points and adding six rebounds in 28 minutes.
The freshman wing, who connected on his first four field goal attempts, finished 6 for 9 from the field while equaling his scoring output from USU’s home win over Colorado State on Dec. 20 and the Aggies’ loss to UNLV at the Spectrum on Jan. 20.
“It was just my approach to the game tonight,” said Elamin, who had scored a total of 15 points over USU’s last six games coming into Friday’s contest.
“I know how badly we want to get the ‘ship, and it was just my approach. I came to the game ready to play, and my teammates deserve a lot of credit for passing me the ball and getting it to me in the right spots.”
Elamin’s fellow starters Drake Allen, MJ Collins Jr. and Mason Falslev all finished with 12 points each and combined for 17 rebounds and 13 assists.
Starting forward Zach Keller contributed seven points and four rebounds, while newly crowned MW Sixth Man of the Year, junior forward Karson Templin, totaled 11 points and three rebounds.
“You know, we really struggled from 3 … but we’ve said all along that this is a special group. We have a lot of depth,” Calhoun said. “When our team is really connected defensively, we have a chance to be really good, and I thought we got out and ran and we got a lot of efforts from a lot of guys.
“I thought (Elamin) was really, really good. I thought Zach and Drake, once again, continued to be the unsung heroes. These guys are really intelligent players. They guard. They just do a tremendous job of buying into their role, and it was a team effort tonight.”
The Aggies shot 45.3% from the field, but they went just 4 for 19 from 3-point range. However, Utah State knocked down 77.1% of its free throws and went 18 for 22 from the charity stripe in the second half to keep the Wolf Pack at bay.
And like they did during Thursday’s 80-60 rout of UNLV in the quarterfinals, the Aggies attacked early and often, outscoring Nevada 20-5 in fast-break opportunities.
“We forced 15 turnovers, and when we’re getting out and we’re running, we’re fun to watch,” Calhoun said. “Adlan Elamin, Mason, MJ — all those guys share the ball and Drake is one of the most unselfish point guards in the country, so the ball has energy with our team, and when you have energy and you like each other, you can go a long way.”
After facing off against Nevada in the Big West, WAC and Mountain West conferences over the past three decades, the Aggies took the final matchup between the two rivals before USU moves onto the Pac-12 this July.
Much like Thursday, the Utah State fan contingent in support of the Aggies was far superior to that of the Wolf Pack, and now those fans will have a chance to witness USU playing in a MW championship game for the first time in three years.
Utah State lost in the final game to San Diego State in 2023 and 2021, but the Aggies beat the Aztecs in the championship in 2020 and 2019.
“It’s very special,” Elamin said when asked about playing for the Mountain West tournament title after winning the outright regular-season championship last week with a 94-90 win over New Mexico at the Spectrum.
“We’ve just got to take it one step at a time, and that’s been our mentality the whole time, and we got the dub today.”
The Wolf Pack flew past 12th-seeded Air Force 80-45 Wednesday afternoon, then edged No. 4 seed Grand Canyon 84-80 Thursday in the quarterfinals to advance to Friday’s showdown with the Aggies.
Steve Alford got 17 points from junior guard Vaughn Weems, but junior guard Chuck Bailey III (10 points) was the only other Nevada player to score in double figures and the Pack never got closer than 11 points over the final 15 minutes of the game.
Nevada’s leading scorer, Corey Camper Jr. (17.0 ppg) totaled just nine points while missing nine of his 12 field goal attempts.
Both teams actually got off to a horrible start Friday, going a combined 0 for 11 from the floor to open the game until Elamin finally scored on a basket in transition two and a half minutes into the contest.
Nevada failed to notch its first field goal until the game was nearly four minutes old, but the Aggies got going much earlier in the second half, quickly stretching a seven-point halftime lead to a 45-32 advantage on a drive by Falslev, a 3-pointer from Allen and a free throw by Collins.
Minutes later, senior guard Kolby King scored back-to-back buckets off of two Aggie steals and great passes from Falslev and Allen to put Utah State comfortably in the driver’s seat with a 56-37 advantage and less than 12 minutes left to play.
“When all the dust settles, we had the same amount of field goals and the same amount of offensive rebounds. We just had too many turnovers,” Alford said. “Any time our assists and turnovers are kind of the same number, it’s usually been in our defeats. I think that hurt us because they were able to get out in transition where they’re really, really good.
“They had two transition points I think in our last game at home, and that enabled us to hang around in that game and sneak out a win. Tonight, I think they had over 20 points in transition. A lot of that came from tough shots because of their defense, and our turnovers because of their defense.”