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Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun yells from the sideline during the game against San Diego State, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024, in San Diego. The first-year Aggies coach has USU off to a 15-1 start. | Denis Poroy, Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Kentucky — After going a long and frustrating 23 years between victories in the NCAA Tournament, the Utah State basketball program hopes it can trim its next drought down to a mere 363 days.
But in order to do that, the 10th-seeded Aggies (26-7) will have to find a way to best No. 7 UCLA (22-10) in the 2025 NCAA Tournament Thursday night at Rupp Arena. The first-round matchup between the Aggies and Bruins tips off at 7:25 MDT.
“Obviously, last year we were very excited to break that (10-game losing) streak or drought, whatever you want to call it,” USU guard Ian Martinez said during Wednesday afternoon’s press conference. “But we have the same goal this year, you know. We believe in our team. I think we have a lot of depth, we have a lot of great guys. We have the talent and the tools to get on a run.
“So, the goal is the same. We’re just trying to get as far as we can.”
On March 22, 2024, the Aggies beat TCU, 88-72, in the NCAA Tournament, USU’s first win in March Madness since 2001. That was under former head coach Danny Sprinkle, who left for Washington after just one season.
Jerrod Calhoun will be the third different head coach to take the Aggies to the NCAA Tournament for three straight years, something that’s only been done once before, not counting interim coaches.
Thursday’s game will also be Calhoun’s first as a head coach in the Big Dance. While he went five times as an assistant coach to Bob Huggins at West Virginia and once at Cincinnati, he never advanced to the NCAA Tournament during his seven-year stint at Youngstown State.
“We’ve really went at this thing for a long time,” said Calhoun, who did take Division II Fairmont State to the national championship game in 2017. “I’ve been a head coach for 13 years. You put a lot of time, a lot of sacrifice on your family, a lot of recruiting trips, a lot of individual workouts, a lot of skilled instruction, a lot of meetings. There is a ton that goes into college basketball, especially with the portal and NIL.
“... So, to me it’s about living in the moment, being present. I shut down my social media months ago. I don’t take a ton of calls; I’ll talk to a few coaches. I just really, really want to pour everything into our guys every day, and we’ve done that. So personally it’s not about the coach, it’s about the players.”
The Aggies have five players (Martinez, Mason Falslev, Karson Templin, Isaac Johnson and Jaxon Smith) back from last year’s roster that beat TCU before bowing out to Purdue in the second round. In addition, senior forward Aubin Gateretse played on a Stetson team that lost to eventual national champion UConn in the first round of the 2024 tournament.
One current Aggie who hasn’t played in March Madness yet is Dexter Akanno; however, the graduate guard is more familiar than anyone with playing UCLA after spending three seasons at Oregon State, including two with former Beaver Tyler Bilodeau. The 6-foot-junior forward from Washington leads the Bruins in scoring (13.6 ppg) this season, while shooting 49.7% from the field and 40.2% from 3-point range.
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UCLA forward Tyler Bilodeau (34) drives on Wisconsin guard Max Klesmit (11) during game in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis, Friday, March 14, 2025. | Michael Conroy, Associated Press
“This is a huge blessing for me,” Akanno said. Just being with this team has meant a lot for us and meant a lot to me, as well. I’m just trying to soak it all in, enjoy the moment, and just keep it going as long as I can.
“As far as the way how (Bilodeau) plays, we kind of all know that he’s focused on the mid-range jumpers and popping out to the 3, facing up, taking different fade-away jumpers, stuff like that. So, trying to be physical with him is going to be big for us.”
Akanno added that the Aggies also believe their best chance to beat the Bruins is to “focus on rebounding the ball and pushing it in transition, that’s going to be huge for us.”
Utah State, which has lost three of its last five games, also understands that the Bruins have a little better understanding than most teams about how to attack its unique matchup zone since it’s similar to the one UCLA head coach Mick Cronin ran at Cincinnati.
Installed by USU associate head coach Eric Haut, the defense is a combination of a 2-3 or 1-3-1 zone and man-to-man defense that Calhoun pointed out originated with former Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willard.
Willard passed it along to Rick Pitino, where Cronin served as an assistant from 2001-03, and Cronin used it during his 13-year stint with the Bearcats.
“If there’s one coach that can prepare for it, it’s Coach Cronin,” Calhoun said. “... I think on a one-day prep, it’s very difficult. But I think UCLA has obviously known for a while they’re playing us. He knows the zone.
“But who knows how he decides to run against it,” Calhoun added. “Sometimes teams run their man stuff, sometimes teams run their zone stuff. But there are also things we can do to adjust throughout the game. One thing we have to do, whether you are playing man or zone, is guard the ball, and we’ve done a poor job of that lately.”
Although they have never worked together, Cronin and Calhoun became friends due to their connection to Huggins. And prior to Sunday’s selection show, Cronin said he had already seen the Aggies play a few times this season.
“I can tell you from experience, if a team is not prepared for it, it can mess you up big time. That’s No. 1,” Cronin said of USU’s defense. “No. 2, Jerrod is a young guy; he’s younger than me, and we’re very close. But before these guys all hired analytics people, we all kinda knew when I was starting out with Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins that the easiest way to score was before the defense got back.”
While the Aggies consider themselves a deep team — Calhoun has played 10 or more athletes in most close games this season — the Bruins also have 10 players who have seen action in at least 30 games in 2024-25.
Behind Bilodeau, sophomore swingman Eric Dailey Jr. (11.6 ppg, 34 3-pointers), sophomore guard Sebastian Mack (10.0 ppg) and senior guard Kobe Johnson (8.1 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 36 3-pointers) are all capable of going off offensively.
Junior guard Skyy Clark (8.0 ppg, 40 3-pointers), who transferred from Louisville, is returning to the Bluegrass State to take the court at Rupp Arena — the home of the Kentucky Wildcats, the program he originally committed to play for.
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UCLA guard Skyy Clark drives on Wisconsin guard Kamari McGee (4) during game in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis, Friday, March 14, 2025. | Michael Conroy, Associated Press
“It’s been a lot of hard work, definitely confusing at times, definitely hard at times,” said Clark, who has been playing this season while his father has been recovering from a stroke. “There were a lot of low moments, a lot of high moments. But I think this season has been a testament to everything that’s happened, and I love this team to death.”
UCLA also boasts a bit of a not-so-secret weapon in sophomore Aday Mara, a 7-foot-3 center from Spain. Although he’s averaging less than 13 minutes per game, Mara is shooting 60% from the field and has blocked 45 shots.
“He’s massive, and he’s only going to get better,” Calhoun said after a writer pointed out that UCLA is 9-0 this season when Mara has played 15 or more minutes. “Tremendous young talent. I think one of the most talented young players in college basketball. You can see when he gets going in a game, and he gets that swagger and that confidence, a lot of times it’s easy baskets. He’s one of the best lob threats we have in college basketball.
“Mick does a tremendous job of putting him in actions, high pick-and-rolls. So, your ball screen defense against him has to be really good. You’ve got to do a tremendous job of playing physical. If he catches the ball in the block, you have no shot.”
But Calhoun, who has already had his name attached to some coaching vacancies this week, also believes the Aggies will create some offensive challenges for the Bruins. Utah State is ninth in the country in assists (17.4 apg), 10th in assist/turnover ratio (1.63), 14th in field goal goal percentage (.490) and 30th in scoring offense (80.9 ppg).
“I think kids like playing in our system,” Calhoun said. “We give them a lot of freedom if you’re open. Our whole system is find, create, and keep advantages. We want to be disruptive defensively, but we want our guys to have great confidence on the offensive end.
“We’re one of the best passing teams in the country. We’re one of the most efficient teams. We take a lot of pride in that, making the right play. Tomorrow’s match-up will be all about ball security. They’re going to come after us in the half court, full court. We want the game to play fast. We want to open this game up. We want to see if we can get up and down with them.”
Health could be a factor for the Aggies when they take the court at 23,500-seat Rupp Arena in the final game of the day on Thursday. While USU’s two leading scorers — Martinez (16.8 ppg) and Falslev (14.9 ppg) have managed to play through a variety of ailments during the second half of the season, a couple of the Aggies’ few big men seem unlikely to be 100% against UCLA.
Forward Karson Templin, who was already playing through an ankle sprain he suffered in a win over Nevada on Jan. 22, also hurt his left leg late in USU’s last game, a 93-85 loss to Colorado State on March 14 in the Mountain West tournament. The Aggies haven’t disclosed exactly what the injury is, but Calhoun noted that Templin didn’t practice on Tuesday. The sophomore from Texas did participate in Wednesday afternoon’s public practice session at Rupp Arena, but most of his left leg was wrapped up.
In addition, Isaac Davis was dressed for Wednesday practice, but the freshman forward never took the court with the team, had a towel wrapped around his shoulders and appeared to be suffering from an illness as he sat in the bench area.
The winner of Thursday night’s game between the Aggies and Bruins will face the winner of 4:50 p.m. MDT matchup between No. 2 Tennessee (27-7) and No. 15 Wofford (19-15).
Former Aggie guard Steven Ashworth will take the court in Thursday’s opening game at Rupp Arena in potentially the final game of his college career. A starter for No. 9 Creighton (24-10), Ashworth and the Bluejays have the immense challenge of playing No. 8 Louisville (27-7) less than 80 miles away from the Cardinals’ campus.
Ashworth, who played at Utah State from 2020-23 before moving east to Omaha, said on Wednesday that he had already run into former USU teammates Falslev and Johnson because the Aggies and Bluejays are staying at the same hotel.
“I’ve obviously followed Utah State’s year this year,” said Ashworth, who starred at Lone Peak High before coming to Logan following his mission. “They had a great year in the Mountain West, a few games shy of competing once again for another Mountain West championship, which that program always does.
“It was fun to catch up with them and just see how the program is doing and what’s different, what’s new, what’s the same and all those types of things. And also talk about how fun it is that both of us are in March Madness once again on the biggest stage at the end of the season.
“I’m really looking forward to watching their game and having them here in Lexington, as well,” added Ashworth, who is averaging 16.3 points and 6.8 assists per game this season for Creighton.
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Creighton's Steven Ashworth plays during an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, March 9, 2024, in Philadelphia. | Matt Slocum
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