LOGAN — Coming off a resounding 110-54 win over Westminster to open the season, Utah State now turns its focus to VCU on Friday night. The Aggies will travel to Frisco, Texas, to take on the Rams on a neutral court.
The game provides an opportunity for both teams to pick up an early win against a quality opponent that could carry some weight on an NCAA Tournament resume.
“That’s why these teams are doing these, they’re getting more and more common with the Atlantic-10, the Mountain West, the American Conference,” Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “There’s some concern with the way college basketball went about the number of bids that the ‘mid-major plus’ type teams are going to get.
“VCU and Utah State are historically powers in their respective conferences that have been in the NCAA Tournament.”
Both teams are coming off strong seasons where they made the NCAA Tournament — VCU with an automatic bid from winning the A-10, while Utah State earned an at-large bid after finishing third in the Mountain West.
VCU won its conference under the direction of former Utah State head coach Ryan Odom, who then made the short trip from Richmond to Charlottesville after being hired as the new head coach at Virginia in the offseason. Conversely, Calhoun returns to Logan with the hopes of leading another tournament-bound team.
Going into the game, Utah State was ranked 40th, according to the Ken Pomeroy, while VCU clocked in at 60th. With limited data and no NET rankings, these rankings are still quite tentative. If the rankings hold, the game will be on the edge of a Quad 1 or Quad 2 game, depending on VCU’s performance throughout the season.
Though the game is only the second game of the season for both teams, it is already a must-win nonconference game for Utah State.
The Aggies’ next highest-ranked matchup after VCU and before conference play starts is its road game against South Florida in early December. Additionally, the average current rank of nonconference opponents is 159, not including the Aggies’ game against Memphis in February.
Once conference play starts, the games don’t get much better. For a Mountain West Conference that has consistently gotten 4-5 teams in the NCAA Tournament in recent years, the conference is looking to shape up as a two-, possibly three-bid league.
Historically strong Boise State is coming off a loss at home to a Division II opponent, and UNLV and Fresno State have already lost games to opponents well below their standing.
The top two teams in the conference last season, New Mexico and Colorado State, are both welcoming in new coaching staffs and almost entirely new rosters since a season ago.
“I root for all the (Mountain West) teams. We don’t need our conference losing games in November and December,” Calhoun said. “The reality of it is we need to be their biggest fans, and that’s kind of how I’ve always been. I always root for those teams.”
Facing what could be an uncharacteristically weak conference, the conference slate will be filled with trap games and plenty of opportunities for low-level losses.
A win against VCU on Friday sets the Aggies up strongly for an NCAA Tournament bid, even if they don’t win the conference. A loss, however, creates a much more difficult path through their landmine-filled schedule.
“Probably the disadvantage, we’d like to have a few more games under our belt,” Calhoun said. “But the reality of it is, you only get 30 opportunities left and you’ve got to make them all count. So, your preparation the next 48 hours will be really key to this outcome.”
The Rams will not be an easy matchup for Calhoun and his squad, as they bring a similar roster construction of returning producers and high-level transfers.
“They’re going to play 11 guys; we’re going to probably play 12. So, both benches will be really important,” Calhoun said. “I think both teams have star power. That’s always important.”
In VCU’s win against Wagner on Monday, the combination of returning guard Brandon Jennings and transfer forward Lazar Djokovic combined for 36 points and 13 rebounds.
“Just take him out of his game early, get his rhythm off,” Utah State guard Kolby King said. “He likes to drive the ball; he can shoot the ball well. So, we know he’s going to be aggressive on the offensive end.”
Despite the challenges of an early-season matchup of this magnitude, the internal preparation for the game and the moment will be critical for Utah State, because it’s a game that they almost can’t afford to lose.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
