The Utah State Aggies had seen enough.
“What you saw was a group of guys that said, ‘We’re not going down like this,’” Aggies head coach Ryan Odom said last Saturday.
Utah State, No. 4 in this week’s Nevada Appeal Mountain West basketball rankings, found itself down 22-4 to the No. 2 Nevada Wolf Pack just five minutes after tip-off in Logan, Utah. The deficit would grow to 30-9 five minutes later and 37-16 with 8:36 to go in the first half.
“That game, to me, was all about composure and playing with heart and grit,” Odom said.
The Aggies (21-7, 10-5) outscored Nevada 59-29 over the final 28-plus minutes to win, 75-66, for one of the more stunning comebacks in Mountain West history.
“There’s no stat, really, that can describe how that game went,” Odom said. “You can’t look at one thing and say, ‘This is why.’”
Nevada (20-7, 10-4) owned all the stats the first 10-plus minutes of the game. Center Will Baker likely set a Mountain West record by scoring his team’s first 22 points of the game. Baker had six 3-pointers without a miss to go along with a pair of free throws and a layup in the first five minutes of the game for one of the greatest starts in college basketball history.
“Twenty-two straight is incredible,” Odom said. “I’ve coached a long time and I’ve never seen anything like that. Credit to him. Quite a few of those shots were guarded quite well and he just knocked them down. Really impressive.”
Baker stopped scoring and, basically, so did the Wolf Pack. The 6-foot-11 center scored just three more points the rest of the game to finish with 25 and Nevada would score just 19 points in the second half.
“We knew it (Baker’s eye-opening start) wouldn’t last the whole game,” said Utah State’s Steve Ashworth, who led the Aggies with 20 points despite missing 8-of-10 threes. “Well, we certainly hope a team doesn’t shoot 90 percent on us for a whole game.”
The Wolf Pack shot 19 percent (5-of-26) in the second half.
“Just really frustrated with the second half,” said coach Steve Alford, whose Wolf Pack will host San Jose State on Tuesday night and go to Fresno State on Friday.
“There hasn’t been a lot of times this year when I could say the other team played harder, but I thought they (Utah State) played harder,” Alford added.
No. 1 San Diego State (21-5, 12-2) struggled but pulled out a 45-43 win over No. 11 Fresno State last week. Matt Bradley led the Aztecs with just 10 points. Fresno State’s Isaiah Hill and Jemarl Baker combined to shoot 1-of-19 on 3-pointers. The Bulldogs were 6-of-28 from the floor and 1-of-16 on threes in the second half.
“Gutty,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said. “That’s all you can say. I just feel like everybody has to win a game like that to have the kind of year you want to have. It wasn’t like we decided to play that way. Fresno State made us play that way.”
Dutcher, who almost always puts a positive spin on whatever his team does, added, “I just felt we were going to win the whole time. You’ve got to play some close games.”
Fresno State fell to 9-17, 5-10, but 12 of the losses have come by 10 points or less.
“We are not taking any moral victories from it,” said Fresno State coach Justin Hutson of the narrow loss to San Diego State. “We represented ourselves well, but we came up short.”
No. 3 Boise State (21-6, 11-3) also won a pair of close games last week, beating No. 8 Colorado State (80-78) and No. 7 UNLV (73-69). Tyson Degenart had 19 points against Colorado State while Marcus Shaver had 19 against UNLV.
UNLV, which comes to Lawlor Events Center to play Nevada on March 4, played without starters Luis Rodriguez and Elijah Parquet against Boise State.
“Against Boise State you have to fight like crazy,” UNLV coach Kevin Kruger said.
“Everybody in our (Boise State’s) locker room is hungry,” Shaver said. “We know we can’t take a day off.”
“We embrace the competition,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “Our guys have been fabulous. You don’t have to be perfect and make all your shots, but we know we have to play good to win these games.”
Colorado State’s Patrick Cartier had 18 points while Isaiah Stevens had 17 points and 12 assists against Boise State. The Rams (12-15, 4-10) led Boise State 28-19 midway through the first half but were outscored 17-3 over the final six minutes of the half to trail 36-31 at the break.
Colorado State, though, recovered to beat Fresno State 60-57 three nights later as Stevens had 17 points.
No. 5 New Mexico (20-7, 7-7) suffered a stunning 70-56 loss at home to No. 10 Wyoming and went on the road to beat No. 6 San Jose State, 96-68. The Lobos, now 14-3 at home, played last week without injured guard Jaelen House. Jamal Mashburn scored 27 points in the win over San Jose State, making 9-of-11 shots and 7-of-7 free throws.
Wyoming (8-18, 3-11) got 20 points from Hunter Maldonado in its 70-56 win at New Mexico and got 22 points from Maldonado and 19 from Jeremiah Oden in its 75-69 loss to No. 9 Air Force (14-14, 5-10) later in the week.
“This (the win at New Mexico) shows when you have character what you can accomplish,” Wyoming coach Jeff Linder said. “That’s what our locker room has. Character. They play for one another.
“It would have been easy for our guys to just say, ‘You know what? It’s been hard this year,’ and just give up.”
The Nevada Appeal’s Mountain West men’s basketball rankings for the week of Feb. 20:
1. SAN DIEGO STATE (21-5, 12-2): Last week: San Diego State 45, Fresno State 43 (Feb. 15). This week: Colorado State at San Diego State (Feb. 21), San Diego State at New Mexico (Feb. 25).
2. NEVADA (20-7, 10-4): Last week: Utah State 75, Nevada 66 (Feb. 18). This week: San Jose State at Nevada (Feb. 21), Nevada at Fresno State (Feb. 24), Nevada at Wyoming (Feb. 27).
3. BOISE STATE (21-6, 11-3): Last week: Boise State 80, Colorado State 78 (Feb. 15), Boise State 73, UNLV 69 (Feb. 19). This week: New Mexico at Boise State (Feb. 22), Boise State at San Jose State (Feb. 25).
4. UTAH STATE (21-7, 10-5): Last week: Utah State 80, Air Force 65 (Feb. 14), Utah State 75, Nevada 66 (Feb. 18). This week: Utah State at Wyoming (Feb. 21).
5. NEW MEXICO (20-7, 7-7): Last week: Wyoming 70, New Mexico 56 (Feb. 14), New Mexico 96, San Jose State 68 (Feb. 17). This week: New Mexico at Boise State (Feb. 22), San Diego State at New Mexico (Feb. 25).
6. SAN JOSE STATE (16-11, 7-7): Last week: San Jose State 75, UNLV 66 (Feb. 14), New Mexico 96, San Jose State 68 (Feb. 17). This week: San Jose State at Nevada (Feb. 21), Boise State at San Jose State (Feb. 25).
7. UNLV (16-11, 5-10): Last week: San Jose State 75, UNLV 66 (Feb. 14), Boise State 73, UNLV 69 (Feb. 19). This week: Air Force at UNLV (Feb. 24).
8. COLORADO STATE (12-15, 4-10): Last week: Boise State 80, Colorado State 78 (Feb. 15), Colorado State 60, Fresno State 57 (Feb. 18). This week: Colorado State at San Diego State (Feb. 21), Wyoming at Colorado State (Feb. 24).
9. AIR FORCE (14-14, 5-10): Last week: Utah State 80, Air Force 65 (Feb. 14), Air Force 75, Wyoming 69 (Feb. 17). This week: Fresno State at Air Force (Feb. 21), Air Force at UNLV (Feb. 24).
10. WYOMING (8-18, 3-11): Last week: Wyoming 70, New Mexico 56 (Feb. 14), Air Force 75, Wyoming 69 (Feb. 17). This week: Utah State at Wyoming (Feb. 21), Wyoming at Colorado State (Feb. 24), Nevada at Wyoming (Feb. 27).
11. FRESNO STATE (9-17, 5-10): Last week: San Diego State 45, Fresno State 43 (Feb. 15), Colorado State 60, Fresno State 57 (Feb. 18). This week: Fresno State at Air Force (Feb. 21), Nevada at Fresno State (Feb. 24).