Utah State basketball beats USF, has best start in school history – Deseret News

While their fellow students had already completed their final exams before the weekend began, the Utah State Aggies had yet another exam to complete on Saturday afternoon.

In the end, it was a history exam with just one question: “What is the only Utah State basketball team to win its first 10 games of the season?”

Thanks to an 88-67 home win over South Florida, the answer is the 2024-25 version of the Aggies, who are now officially off to the best start in school history at 10-0.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said USU guard Mason Falslev, a Cache Valley native. “I grew up watching the Aggies and that’s something I can hold onto forever. Looking back, being able to say I was part of the best start in Utah State history is pretty cool.”

Falslev did his best to add to the historic nature of Saturday’s contest at the Spectrum, narrowly managing to record a triple-double. The sophomore totaled 27 points, nine rebounds and nine assists in 39 minutes.

The Sky View High product nearly exited the game with the score determined with just under a minute left, but USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun ultimately left Falslev out to record the fourth triple-double in school history.

“I’m a player-coach and I believe in rewarding hard work, and Mason had 27, nine and nine,” Calhoun said. “I was just about to get him out, but the boy is a beast. He’s a warrior.”

Falslev failed to improve his stats in the final moments of the game, but he said he was grateful for the opportunity to become the first Aggie since Jon Judkins in 1988 to record a triple-double.

Shaler Halimon posted the first two triple-doubles in the late 60s, while former USU guard Rollie Worster also came close in 2021, totaling 19 points, nine rebounds and nine assists in a win at UNLV.

“I appreciate the coaches and my team for being so great and supporting me,” said Falslev, who knocked down three three-pointers in the first half.

“… I didn’t know I was that close until the last media timeout with less than four minutes left. (Freshman guard) Jaxon Smith came up to me and said, ‘Dude, you got eight and eight.’ I didn’t think I had that many rebounds.”

Falslev’s nine assists against the Bulls (5-5) are a career high, but he wasn’t the only Aggie to unleash pinpoint passes. Senior point guard Drake Allen totaled seven assists on a turnover and Utah State totaled 27 assists on 32 field goals.

In fact, the Aggies had 16 assists on 16 field goals in the second half until Allen scored from the baseline with 48 seconds to play.

“We just threw the ball forward,” Calhoun said. “We did a really good job of just looking for each other. When we put the team together, all we talked about was “us over me” and finding ways to win.”

The Aggies had a balanced 50% shooting percentage in the game, but were much more efficient from the floor in the second half at 60.7% despite going 1-for-10 from 3-point range.

Utah State narrowly won the rebounding battle 32-31, but had 22 turnovers against the Bulls, which led to 29 points. The home team also scored 18 to 21 from the free throw line.

Senior guard Ian Martinez, the Mountain West’s best free-throw shooter, shot 6-for-6 from the line, helping offset an otherwise difficult shooting night (4-for-12 from the field, 1-for-6 from 3-point range). Top scorer in the conference.

Martinez still had 15 points at the end, while fifth place was big for the Aggies. Senior big man Aubin Gateretse and sophomore forward Karson Templin combined for 23 points and 12 rebounds while connecting on 9 of 13 field goal attempts.

“I thought Aubin and Karson Templin did a great job,” Calhoun said. “Karson was incredible for us and Aubin had a great game tonight. I was really, really proud of him and happy for him. We challenged him before the game. I said, ‘These guys are physical.'”

The most important part of that challenge was neutralizing South Florida’s Jamille Reynolds, who came into Saturday’s game averaging 11.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.

The 6-foot-2, 220-pound senior played only 12 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble and struggled with USU’s double-teams throughout the game, committing five turnovers to score just six points.

South Florida’s leading scorer, sophomore guard Jayden Reid, also struggled on offense, scoring just nine points, nearly five below his season average.

“They are as good as advertised,” USF interim coach Ben Fletcher said of the Aggies. “I thought at the end of the first half we figured some things out. They went into the locker room and made adjustments to how they guarded some of our actions and man, they did a great job in the second half of giving us a different look.”

Fletcher, who took the helm at South Florida after head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim died during surgery on Oct. 24, also lamented his team’s ball handling against a Utah State team that played only in the matchup zone.

“It’s the turnovers because I felt like most of them – we had 22, which is way too many – were again self-inflicted,” Fletcher said. “At some point we have to make a concerted effort to not have these anymore, because I feel like if we take them away we are giving ourselves a better chance.”

The Bulls actually shot the ball much better in the second half (54.2%), but lost ground against the Aggies after going on an 8-0 run to end the first half, trailing 37-31 went on break.

It didn’t help that Utah State scored twice thanks to back-to-back steals early in the second half before South Florida got a shot off.

However, the visitors still managed to prevail and were only eight points behind before the Aggies went on a 10-0 run to take a 60-42 lead with less than 12 minutes left.

In the end, Utah State led by as many as 21 points and improved to 7-0 at home this season.

The Aggies return to the Spectrum next Tuesday night when they host UC San Diego. Utah State, which played neutral-site games in Kansas City and Orlando in November, will not play its first road game until Dec. 22 against Saint Mary’s.