Utah State knocks off San Diego State, creates three-way tie atop Mountain West standings

Following Saturday’s action, three men’s basketball teams share first place in the Mountain West standings.

New Mexico (18-4, 9-2), San Diego State (15-6, 9-2) and Utah State (18-3, 9-2) lead the way as Nevada (16-6, 8-3) and Grand Canyon (14-7, 7-3) remain in the title hunt. No other MWC team is above .500 in conference play.

In the game of the day, Utah State outlasted San Diego State to secure a 71-66 victory at Smith Spectrum.

The Aggies found a way to win despite shooting just 6 of 26 (23 percent) from beyond the arc, 13 of 23 (57 percent) from the foul line while committing 18 turnovers.

“This was a really big win for us,” Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “Really want to shout out our players to win this game, as ugly as we played offensively. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of that, where your two best players (MJ Collins Jr. and Mason Falslev) went 6 of 21, you had 18 turnovers. But the difference was we were the tougher team the last seven minutes of the game.”

Karson Templin had a monster game off the bench for the Aggies with 18 points, seven rebounds, two steals and two blocks.

Reese Dixon-Waters paced the Aztecs with 19 points.

New Mexico moved into a tie for first place with a 90-80 road victory over San Jose State (6-16, 1-10).

“I want to watch the film before I make any sweeping declarations, but it wasn’t our best performance defensively for sure,” New Mexico head coach Eric Olen said. “I thought San Jose State had a lot to do with that and they made a lot of difficult shots. We made some mistakes that they made us pay for. We could be better. We had a good performance offensively—start to finish—and it was good enough on the road to get a win.”

Jake Hall buried seven three-pointers and finished with 27 points to lead the Lobos, who host Utah State on Wednesday.

Nevada and Grand Canyon both bagged double-digit home victories on Friday night.

The Wolf Pack earned an 89-76 win over rival UNLV (10-11, 5-5) before an all-time record crowd of 11,997 at Lawlor Events Center. The Lopes used a big second half to easily dispatch Boise State (13-9, 5-6), 86-69.

On Saturday, Wyoming (13-9, 4-7) claimed the first round of the Border War with a 68-57 win over Colorado State (12-10, 3-8). Air Force (3-18, 0-10) was no match for Fresno State (10-11, 4-6), falling 79-62 at home.