Utah State will face a familiar opponent in the Mountain West tournament. After securing the No. 1 seed, the Aggies are set to face UNLV, the only team to sweep them during the 2025-26 season.
Utah State (25-6 overall) will play No. 8 seed UNLV (17-15, 11-9) at 1 p.m. MT Thursday in the quarterfinals at the Thomas & Mack Center. UNLV defeated Wyoming 73-70 in the first game of the postseason tournament.
Pastner’s Praise for Calhoun and Utah State
UNLV head coach Josh Pastner spoke highly of Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun. Pastner said Calhoun does a great job and that Utah State are a great basketball team. He added that Calhoun is an outstanding coach.
“They’re really a high-level group,” Pastner said. “I mean, any job that opens for anywhere in the country, Jerrod Calhoun is going to have his pick of which job that he wants. I think he does a great job.”
Pastner also acknowledged the strength of Utah State’s players. “They’ve got a lot of great players. They play hard. They’re well-coached and we’re going to have to play our best game of the season if we want to have an opportunity to win the game.”
UNLV’s Previous Victories Over Utah State
UNLV handed Utah State its worst loss of the season. UNLV routed Utah State 92-65 at the Thomas & Mack Center, after leading 32-24 at halftime. The Rebels scored 60 points in the second half.
UNLV was also the only visiting team to win at the Spectrum this season. They came back from 14 points down with 13 minutes left to win 86-76 on Jan. 20.
Calhoun’s Perspective on the Matchup
Calhoun discussed the previous games against UNLV. “Those were two totally different games,” Calhoun said. “In the first one, we were up 14 late in the game and we just didn’t get the stops. And certainly, the last game was not good at all.
Calhoun added, “But there’s just points in games where there are momentum swings, and I feel like every time we’ve played them, they’ve had those.”
Calhoun emphasised the importance of defence. “I think it’s going to start and end with our defense. We have to have the ability to keep guys in front and keep them out of the paint. And they’re big and long and athletic, and they switch all the ball screens. So, we’ll have a better attack with that. And, you know, we’ve just got to get back to playing championship-level defense.”
Aggies’ Preparation and Recent Success
The Aggies are coming off a victory against New Mexico, 94-90. This win secured the Mountain West regular-season championship outright for the second time in three years.
Calhoun gave his team Sunday and Monday off after the New Mexico game. Practices resumed on Tuesday.
“We had a very good practice on Tuesday and a really solid practice on Wednesday — not a lot of contact,” Calhoun said. “We went low, low on our workloads. So, that means it’s about an hour and five minutes, and I would say about 20 of those minutes today was contact. Yesterday was full contact after two off days.”
Tuesday also ended up being a good day for the Aggies as far as posts