Utah State’s long held a lot of promise. They might’ve been the favorite in 2010, but they missed the field. They were a strong contender last year, but the coronavirus reared its head. They made the Final Four in 1960, but that was sixty years ago (and they finished third).
They were expected to be a strong contender this season, but early returns were poor. In their first four games, they lost thrice—once by 24 to South Dakota State—and their only win came over a Northern Iowa team whose tailspin is only just now finding its ditch.
Recently, though, the Aggies have made a comeback.
It started innocuously enough. Craig Smith’s guys marched through a bad stretch of Mountain West opponents. San José State? Beat ‘em by 55 and 32. Air Force? 35, 19. New Mexico? 32, 36. It was auspicious, sure, but the question remained as to whether it was for real, or if this was just the turn-of-the-last-decade-era-esque beating up on bad teams we remember vaguely from these guys in the past.
Then, last night happened.
In a defensive tour de force, Utah State rendered an allegedly good San Diego State team impotent, holding the Aztecs to just 45 points in a messy, cluttered game that left the Aggies standing firmly in the middle of today’s NIT Bracketology. They play great defense. Their offense kinda stinks. They have no good nonconference wins, and their nonconference losses could all theoretically end up being bad.
They’re beautiful.
Other notes for today:
- BYU left Moraga with a devastating win for both their own NIT chances and those of their hosts. Neither the Cougars nor Saint Mary’s are in today’s projected field, which is shockingly WCC-less.
- We’ve had our eyes on Indiana and Stanford for a while, having watched a lot of them back during Asheville/Maui. Last night, they both made moves towards home, losing comfortably to Purdue and Utah, respectively.
- Colorado State is also making moves in the Mountain West, as is Boise State, which made one move too many and left our field. It feels like one of those four (those two plus SDSU and Utah State) will likely win the conference tournament, but a three-bid MWC is a strong possibility at the moment.
- Today, on a basketball court, Wisconsin plays Rutgers. Rutgers has been flirting with our territory for a couple weeks now. A sizable home loss would do a lot for the team whose brand is pretty darn close to that of the NIT, if we’re being honest with each other (“we” being ourselves and Rutgers).
- Big games in Conference USA and the Horizon League. Marshall goes to Western Kentucky (please, be kind to Big Red). Cleveland State goes to Wright State (It’s #AllEyesOnNutter season).
