Photo source: Utah State AthleticsUtah State enters the Mountain West Tournament as the regular-season champion, but the Aggies now run into the one team that gave them the most problems all year.
UNLV swept Utah State during the regular season, winning 86-76 in Logan before delivering a 92-65 blowout in Las Vegas on March 3. Now the two teams meet again Thursday in the quarterfinals at the Thomas & Mack Center, with the Rebels trying to make it three straight against the top seed and the Aggies trying to finally solve a matchup that has bothered them on both ends.
Here is a Q & A with Cache Valley Daily’s Jason Walker to break down the Utah State men’s basketball team.
Utah State won the Mountain West regular-season title, but UNLV was the only team to beat the Aggies twice this season. From Utah State’s perspective, what has made the Rebels such a difficult matchup?
There are some things that make sense about UNLV being a tough matchup and some things that really don’t. What certainly helps are guys like Kimani Hamilton and Tyrin Jones. Hamilton is the type of player that the Aggies struggle to guard — a long but also strong athlete that can consistently hit the short mid-range shot. Utah State’s defensive scheme and personnel just isn’t built to defend that kind of player. Jones has had his own moments on offense, but his defense has been a huge factor. Utah State is a strong inside scoring team, but if a team presents a high-level rim protector that can spell trouble for the Aggies as they don’t have guys that finish well around length.
One aspect that doesn’t make much sense is UNLV’s 3-point defense against USU. The Rebels rank 313th in 3-point defense but have held the Aggies to 22.2% on three across the two matchups. UNLV has been better at 3-point defense lately, including holding Wyoming to 3-of-21 on Wednesday, but even earlier in the season when they were struggling they forced USU to shooting 7 of 24 from three on the Aggies’ home court.
In the most recent meeting, UNLV shot nearly 58 percent from the field and won by 27 points. What stood out the most about how the Rebels were able to control that game?
Any team that has beaten or challenged the Aggies has been able to control the paint. On both sides, really, but looking at UNLV’s offense they were able to get whatever shot they wanted inside. Hamilton was able to get to his spots, Howie Fleming was able to beat guys off the dribble and either score or dish to an open shooter or cutting big like Jones. UNLV had 46 points in the paint, and when teams are able to find that level of volume scoring in the paint, they are unstoppable on offense.
Kimani Hamilton and Tyrin Jones have been major matchup problems for Utah State, combining for big scoring nights in both meetings. What makes those two particularly difficult for the Aggies to defend?
They are either too big for Utah State’s wings like MJ Collins, Drake Allen or Mason Falslev, or they’re too fast for USU’s bigs like Karson Templin, Zach Keller and Garry Clark. Probably the one guy that can match Jones and Hamilton for length and speed is Adlan Elamin, though he’s been up-and-down with his defensive consistency and foul rate. And even when he’s on, the Aggies aren’t keeping him tagged onto either of those players because of the matchup zone scheme and constant switching. On any given possession, Jones and Hamilton can get matchup up with a 6-foot-4 guard or a slower 6-foot-10 big and either bully their way to the basket or draw a foul (or both).
UNLV has also had success on the glass in the series, including a big rebounding edge in the first matchup. How important will the rebounding battle be in a third meeting?
Utah State has won games where it lost the rebounding battle by a notable margin so it’s hard to say. It usually comes down to where those rebounds come from. Part of what has led to UNLV’s rebounding advantage is that USU has shot rather poorly and the Rebels have shot incredibly well. There are just fewer rebounds for the Aggies to get on UNLV misses and more for the Rebels on plentiful USU missed shots.
In some games, dominant rebounding numbers lead to wins. In other games you dominate in other areas and happen to get more rebounds. UNLV’s wins were more of the latter, though due credit is deserved to the Rebels for keeping USU from grabbing offensive rebounds in both games.
Utah State shot just 5-of-30 from three in the most recent match-up. Was that more about UNLV’s defensive pressure, or was it simply one of those nights where the offense never found rhythm?
One would thank that UNLV has to have something to do with it given they’ve held Utah State to under 30% shooting from three multiple times. The Aggies aren’t among the best of the best in terms of 3-point shooting, but they do rank 51st in 3-point percentage so it’s a credit to the Rebels that they’ve found a way to replicate that defense multiple times.
Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn is obviously the headliner for UNLV, but the Rebels scored 92 points in the rematch even with him finishing with just 10. How concerning is UNLV’s offensive balance from Utah State’s perspective?
Before the March 3 game I said on my radio show that I felt the game wouldn’t be determined by how well Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn did offensively, but how well Hamilton and Jones would do. That turned out to be fairly prophetic. And I think Thursday’s game will play out in a similar way. Gibbs-Lawhorn is obviously an instrumental piece in UNLV’s offense, but the matchup advantage they have against Utah State is elsewhere. I’ve focused a lot on Hamilton and Jones thus far in my answers, but we obviously saw Fleming, Isaac Williamson and even Walter Brown make plays in either or both of UNLV’s wins over USU. If the do so again, it’ll be another Rebels victory.
Mason Falslev has been the heartbeat of this Utah State team all season. What has made him so important to the Aggies’ success, and how does his game translate to a tournament environment?
Mason isn’t an A+ scorer or A+ passer, or an A+ rebounder, defender, shooter or whatever category of basketball you can come up with. But he’s a B+ at least in pretty much all of those and on any given night he’s providing one or more things that Utah State just needs. He’s the only player in the league with at least five games of 20+ points, four games of 5+ assists and two games of 10+ rebounds. And there are other plays he makes that don’t show up on the stat sheet and he made a few of those. Analytics models tend to pick up on his impact, such as EvanMiya.com which ranks Falslev 61st nationally in its “Indispensability Score” and 39th in “MVP Score” which are metrics that aim to measure basically what their respective names suggest, value and indispensability to a team.
How it will translate to a tournament environment is hard to tell exactly. But as we’ve seen so far in the MW Tournament, scoring is more limited. Falslev’s biggest plays may not come strictly from scoring or playmaking, but in defense, rebounding and hustle plays.
From a fan perspective, this is an interesting matchup because Utah State had such a dominant season but ran into trouble specifically against UNLV. How are Aggie fans feeling heading into this third meeting?
There’s a mix of cautious optimism. Also, there’s a lot of fans who don’t want to run, metaphorically speaking, from this matchup. They really want to see Utah State settle things on the court. But part of them also really didn’t want to see Utah State have to face UNLV again. They know it’s a tough matchup and they know Utah State hasn’t really been playing its best ball in the last month. Aggie fans were big Wyoming supporters yesterday, but will now nervously watch how round three of this series will go.
Mountain West Tournament games in Las Vegas always seem to have a different energy than regular season games. From covering this program, how does Utah State typically respond to that environment?
It’s been a mix, but lately they haven’t done as well. In the Craig Smith and Ryan Odom years (the late 2010s, early 2020s), they stepped up to the moment time and time again. They made four MW Tournament title games in a five-year span and won two of those championship bouts. But in the last few years they’ve struggled. As the one seed in 2024 they needed overtime to beat nine seed Fresno State and then lost 86-70 in the semifinal to San Diego State. And last year they did manage to outlast a heavily depleted UNLV team 70-58 but were then soundly defeated by Colorado State in the semis 83-72 (the 11-point margin was very deceptive, it was worse than that).
Utah State enters the game coming off several days of rest after the bye, while UNLV just played a physical game against Wyoming. How much does the rest versus momentum factor matter in a tournament setting?
This is the eternal debate. Rest vs rust. And it kind of ends up being a logic applied retroactively. If UNLV wins, the momentum from beating Wyoming helped. If they lose, then having a seven-man rotation and being on the second leg of a back-to-back was a culprit. Rest and momentum are 100% factors in a scenario like this, it’s almost impossible to know beforehand how it will truly impact the results because it can be a case-by-case basis. But I’m inclined to think that UNLV won’t be that impacted by the lack of rest.
For Utah State, I think the rest will help more than it hurts. They play a high-energy style defense and they haven’t had more than a couple of days off between games since December. They’ve gotten a few extra days off here and that could help them with both preparation and in getting much-needed rest.
Outside of the main headliners, which Utah State player should UNLV fans keep an eye on in this matchup?
Karson Templin. When he’s playing well, it’s a massive boost on both ends as he can become a source of offense and a physical presence in the paint on defense.
Big picture, if Utah State is going to flip the script and advance to the semifinals, what has to happen over 40 minutes?
They’ve got to control the paint on offense and defense, but most especially on defense. In Utah State’s losses to Nevada, San Diego State and UNLV down the stretch, the one common denominator among all of them was not being able to keep teams from getting into the paint and scoring at will. If any one number will dictate who wins this game, it’s how many points in the paint UNLV will have.
Jason Walker covers Utah State athletics for Cache Valley Daily and co-hosts the Full Court Press on 106.9 The Fan. Follow him on X at @jwalker_sports.