SAN DIEGO — They might be a slightly lower seed, but after winning both the Mountain West regular-season title and the conference’s postseason tournament, the Utah Aggies are feeling confident about their chances against the Villanova Wildcats heading into Friday’s Round of 64 NCAA Tournament game.
“I think everyone’s going to be ready to go,” Utah State forward Karson Templin said during a press conference Thursday afternoon at Viejas Arena. “Both teams are going to be fired up. It’s an NCAA Tournament game.
“It’s what you watch as a kid, and you watch on TV your whole life, so I think everybody’s going to be motivated no matter what, but I think you have to have some confidence to win a game, or a couple of games.”
Given a No. 9 seed by the tournament selection committee, Utah State (28-6) will tip off against No. 8 seed Villanova (24-8) at 2:10 p.m. Friday. The venue is a familiar one for Utah State, which plays conference rival San Diego State each season at 12,414-seat Viejas Arena.
“We beat them in here last year in an epic game; Tucker Anderson made the game-winner, so our guys are used to San Diego,” USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said, “and I think San Diego is one of the best cities in America. ... it’s breathtaking, and travel’s real easy.
“We get on a plane, and we’re like 75-80 minutes away, so a lot of our returning guys are used to Viejas. I think it’s one of the best venues. The Aztecs have a tremendous following, and this is a basketball place, so I think it’s a great venue, and really good for us, personally.”
Confident that his team was worthy of being given a No. 7 seed or even a No. 6 seed after winning all three of its Mountain West tourney games in Las Vegas last week by double digits, Calhoun called the Aggies being given a No. 9 slot on Selection Sunday “absolutely atrocious.”
But Calhoun said his team has taken the situation in stride, and that it has an “edge” right now.
“We just won three games in three days, and having an ‘edge’ is playing every possession, possession by possession,” Calhoun said.
“Whether it’s on offense, defense, coming out of a timeout, understanding the details of the scout, what pick-and-roll coverage you’re in, setting your defense, finishing around the rim — we’ve got to do all of those things, and it starts in your prep.”
Following USU’s selection show watch party at the Spectrum on Sunday, Calhoun said he hadn’t seen Villanova play a game this season. He said he’s now watched them play “eight or nine” games, and he’s impressed how the Wildcats “can win in a variety of ways.”
“The guy wins everywhere he’s been,” Calhoun said of first-year Villanova head coach Kevin Willard. “I think he was a home-run hire when he went to Villanova. We’ve got to be ready for a lot of different things. He makes you adjust as a coach.
“... They can win really pretty when they’re making 3s, and they can win ugly.”
Villanova opened the season with a 71-66 loss to BYU in Las Vegas, but the Wildcats won seven straight games after that before losing at 1 seed Michigan, 89-61, on Dec. 9.
The Wildcats reeled off another five wins in a row before losing to a 15-win Creighton team at home, 76-72, on Jan. 7, and Villanova’s only other Big East losses came at the hands of UConn and St. John’s.
An 89-57 loss to the Red Storm on Feb. 21 at Madison Square Garden was particularly rough, but the Wildcats also won a “neutral” site game over Wisconsin, 76-66 in overtime, on Dec. 19, and pulled out a 64-56 win at Seton Hall four days later.
But after earning the No. 3 seed in the Big East Tournament, Villanova was shocked by No. 11 Georgetown, 78-64, in its first game of the event on March 12.
The Wildcats shot just 37.7% from the floor, including a 7-for-29 effort from 3-point range, in their loss to the Hoyas. Villanova committed only six turnovers, but Georgetown absolutely dominated the boards (46-25) and shot 50.8% as a team.
“Just watching (Utah State’s) last five games, I was so impressed with how physical that conference is,” Willard said of the Mountain West, “and from a rebounding standpoint, that was something we struggled with in the Georgetown game.
“That’s something we’ve really talked about the last four or five days in practice, is just getting back to the understanding that we have to be physical on the defensive end.”
Ironically, Utah State’s “defensive end” is something Willard has been familiar with since he was a little kid.
Last year in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin was very comfortable with playing against the Aggies’ matchup zone because it’s similar to what he ran at Cincinnati — and Cronin, who guided UCLA to a 72-47 win over the Aggies in Lexington, Kentucky, first learned that defense from Rick Pitino, who picked it up from the originator, former Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willard — Kevin Willard’s dad.
“I had to listen to my dad when I drew Utah State because coach Calhoun does it probably better than anybody,” Kevin Willard said. “I’ve tried it. The matchup zone is really difficult, but what I think I’ve seen from them is, the difference from last year’s team to this year’s team is that guys have played it in multiple years.
“I watched their UCLA game last year, and the difference from last year to this year’s team, and it’s crazy how much better they are at it. He’s taken what my dad’s defense was, and he’s actually made it a little bit better in my opinion. ...He’s put his own spin on it, but we have a good feel for what we need to do to attack it. I think we’re going to have to adjust during the game because there’s one thing — it’s morphed into a little bit more of a man-to-man than it was last year.”
Offensively, the Wildcats have seemingly no end to the number of weapons they can throw at the Aggies on Friday.
Willard’s roster boasts five players who have averaged double figures in scoring this year, including junior guard Tyler Perkins (13.7 ppg), senior forward Duke Brennan (12.4 ppg), freshman guard Acaden Lewis (12.3 ppg), sophomore guard Bryce Lindsay (11.9 ppg) and graduate guard Devin Askew (10.0 ppg).
Brennan leads the team in rebounding (10.3 rpg), while Lindsay (72 3-pointers), Askew (64 3-pointers) and Perkins (63 3-pointers) are all perimeter-scoring threats.
Askew, who played at Long Beach State last season after also spending time at Kentucky, Texas and Cal, was named the Big East Sixth Man of the Year while averaging 23.1 minutes a game coming off of the bench.
“We’ve been focusing on defense, and our coaches have dug into a lot of their games and have figured out what we need to do in order to be successful,” USU junior guard Mason Falslev said. “So, we’re just trying our best to follow our coach’s game plan.”
When he was in college at Cleveland State, Calhoun played two seasons for former Villanova head coach Rollie Massimino, who became a coaching legend by leading the Wildcats to a national championship in 1985.
Villanova was a No. 8 seed in that NCAA Tournament — potentially a bad omen for the Aggies — but Calhoun had nothing but good things to say about his mentor when asked about that connection by a member of the Philadelphia media.
“What coach Mass taught me about running a program is family,” Calhoun said. “We run it very similar to the way he did. ... I don’t know if there’s another coach that I’ve ever seen really bring people together like coach Mass. He never had a bad day.
“... A lot of what we do structurally is from coach Mass, and it’s pretty surreal to be coaching in this game. I’m sure he’d be proud that we’re going against his favorite team.”
Willard is nearing the end of his first season at Villanova following stops at Iona, Seton Hall and Maryland. He’s now in his 19th year as a head coach after he was an assistant to Pitino with the Boston Celtics and Louisville Cardinals.
While Calhoun’s only NCAA Tournament experience as a head coach came last year against UCLA, Willard has taken seven teams to the Big Dance, not including 2020 when Seton Hall won the regular-season Big East title before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been great,” Perkins said when asked about playing for a coach with Willard’s experience. “The whole season, we’ve all been all ears to what he’s saying. We all trust him. We all understand he’s a really good coach. ... We’re locked in on the details that he tells us every day. It’s definitely a good feeling to have a coach like that on our team.”
Falslev, Templin, Drake Allen, Tucker Anderson and Jordy Barnes were all part of the USU team that went up against UCLA last year, while Falslev and Templin were both on the 2024-23 squad that ended the Aggies’ 23-year-long gap between wins in the NCAA Tournament with a victory over TCU in Indianapolis under former head coach Danny Sprinkle.
Falslev, who also redshirted in 2023-24 when Utah State faced Missouri in the tourney under Ryan Odom, said, “It’s important to soak up every moment because you don’t know if you’ll have another chance.”
He added, “Not a lot of people can say they’ve played in March Madness. Just give it all you’ve got and leave it all on the court.”