When No.1 Utah State can dominate a team without a massive scoring performance from its Mountain West Player of the Year, there’s not much reason to think the Aggies can’t go on to win the Credit Union 1 Mountain West Men’s Basketball Tournament.
They’ll have a chance to do so on Saturday after a Friday-night authoritative win over No. 5 Nevada. Scoring-wise, Mason Falslev was quiet for his standards, recording a modest 12 points. But his teammates stepped up, particularly off the bench, in a 79-66 win to move onto the championship game.
Falslev was massively important all over the rest of the floor, with five rebounds, five assists and three steals. Team-wide, despite impressive stat lines top-to-bottom, coach Jerrod Calhoun is demanding better in the final.
“Yeah, I don’t think they’re all firing, to be honest with you. I thought we had a lot of guys off the bench that could play better,” Calhoun said. “We played great defense, but offensively we missed a lot of reads, we didn’t make threes, so we didn’t play our best today. We’ve got more in the tank.”
After a first half which Utah State won by seven points but didn’t dominate any stat in particular, the turning point was the first 10 minutes of the second half, when the Aggies outscored Nevada 19-7 to put the game out of reach.
Adlan Elamin got the run going with a pair of tough buckets and a corner 3. He had a massive impact on Friday’s semifinal, going for a team-high 15 points and six rebounds after only scoring three points in his last four games combined. Kolby King played a role, too, with two straight fastbreak layups — one of them with a completed and-1 — coming off of steals. Also off the bench, Karson Templin went for 11.
“I just really focused on making defensive plays and rebounding, and I knew the offense would come,” Elamin said. “So, it was really just having trust in my teammates and my teammates having trust in me.”
Five Utah State players finished in double digits. Seven finished with at least five.
The most impressive line from Friday’s commanding display came from Drake Allen, who flirted with a triple double with 12 points, nine rebounds, six assists and four steals. He and Falslev became just the first pair of Mountain West teammates to ever finish with at least 10 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals in regulation.
More impressively, he did it with only an elbow and a half for most of the game, having suffered a flagrant foul in the first half where he landed hard on his dominant elbow.
“Drake is a warrior. He always has been. This summer if you came and watched our practices, you would think Drake Allen is LeBron James,” Templin said. “But, you know, he just had a kid, so he’s got some of that dad strength now. I think the urgency is here for him, and he’s getting down to his last few games. So we’re going to need him down the stretch.”
Utah State will play the winner of No. 2 San Diego State and No. 3 New Mexico for a title on Saturday.
