Perhaps it was the uniforms from the 80s or the rowdy students that showed up with it snowing outside.
Whatever it was, the Aggies came ready to play Wednesday night at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum against Wyoming. The Utah State men's basketball team trailed in the very early going, but quickly scored 13 straight points and just kept adding to the lead on Stew Morrill Court.
The Aggies rolled to a 94-62 Mountain West Conference victory in front of an announced crowd of 10,270 — the third sellout this season.
"I'm really proud of our guys' effort tonight," USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. "I thought we did an incredible job of creating advantages and playing for each other."
The coach went on to explain the team was playing for someone special Wednesday night.
"We were not only playing for the fans and the HURD, but playing for Xander," Calhoun said. "Xander is a young boy who, at birth, was diagnosed with cancer, and his story really touched home to us. People who have kids, watching that little boy interact with our guys last week. His dad and mom sharing that story with us. The perseverance and the toughness that he has is something that we can all learn from. I thought it really resonated with the guys last week as we went out to Colorado State. I'm really happy that he got to go through the handshake line, really happy that he got to light up the blue A, because we were playing for something bigger than just us tonight."
It was the largest margin of victory for either team in 92 meetings.
All 12 Aggies (17-3, 8-2 MW) played at lest six minutes and 10 of them scored. Kolby King came off the bench to lead USU with a season-high 20 points on 6 of 9 shooting.
"First, all glory to God," King said. "Coach had an amazing game plan for this game — get it to the middle of the paint and kick out for threes in space. We had great spacing tonight, and we made shots and got a lot of assists, 28. That's team basketball."
Yes, it is.
Seven different Aggies had multiple assists in the game.
King was joined by four teammates in double-digit scoring in Garry Clark (13), MJ Collins Jr. (12), Mason Falslev (11) and Tucker Anderson (11). King also led the team in rebounding with a game-high seven boards. Drake Allen led the team in assists with six, while freshman Adlan Elamin had career highs in assists (5) and steals (4).
"It felt good," King said. "We bring it every day in practice, we compete every day in practice, every time we go, because we know how much depth we have and we have a lot of talented guys on this team. It felt very good, especially for me to get out of my slump and be the team player that I am."
USU had a season-low five turnovers, giving up just six points on those. Wyoming finished with 13 turnovers, which the Aggies turned into 21 points.
The Cowboys (12-9, 3-7) were led by Leland Walker with a game-high 24 points. Nasir Meyer added 12 points. Walker and Meyer, along with About Magassa, grabbed five rebounds each.
The Cowboys hit their first two shots of the game and held an early 4-2 advantage.
After missing their first shot of the game, the Aggies scored on their next nine possessions. They used a 13-0 run to get in front as Falslev hit a 3-pointer off a pass from Allen to spark it. Elamin came up with a steal and coast-to-coast-highlight-reel-one-handed jam to keep the surge going. Collins capped it with a 3-pointer, which forced a timeout by the Cowboys just over four minutes into the game.
The Aggies would maintain a double-digit lead for most of the first 20 minutes. Wyoming never scored on back-to-back possessions in the opening half.
Anderson drilled a shot from beyond the arc off a pass from Falslev to trigger a 8-0 run later in the first half. King scored on a fast break when Elamin came up with another steal and fed the speedy guard for a layup. King swished a shot from 3-point land off an Allen pass to make it 40-23 with six minutes left before halftime.
Falslev converted a three-point play, and King knocked down a pair of free throws to give the hosts a 46-25 lead at the 3:31 mark before halftime and brought out the "Up by 20-1" chant from the boisterous USU students, who were mostly clad in pink to bring awareness to cancer research.
The Aggies scored the final five points of the half to take a 50-28 lead into the break. USU scored 12 points off seven turnovers, while giving up just two on two turnovers.
The hosts picked right up where they left off to start the second half. The Cowboys had five turnovers in the first two-and-a-half minutes of the second, and the Aggies turned those into six points.
USU brought out a "Up by 30-2" chant when Collins capped a 8-0 run with a 3-pointer off a pass from Allen. Collins threw a dunk down on the break after an Elamin steal and assist. The trey made it 62-30 with 17 minutes to play.
Wyoming then scored its first back-to-back points in the game. The Cowboys actually put together seven unanswered points to get within 62-37 with 14:35 left in the game.
The Aggies roared back with 11 straight points. Clark got it started with a layup off a pass from Collins. Karson Templin banked in a 3-pointer, and Collins gave the hosts a 73-37 lead with 12 minutes left on a dunk off a pass from Elijah Perryman.
Anderson gave the Aggies their largest lead of the game, 77-39, with 10:29 to play when he hit his second trey of the game.
Calhoun used all of his bench the last six minutes of the contest.
"We've got a lot of depth, guys who can do a lot," King said. "Shoutout to Luke (Kearney), Jordy (Barnes), those guys came in and impacted the game very well."
Wyoming scored back-to-back buckets for the second and final time of the game with 3:20 to play.
The Aggies have now won seven straight against the Cowboys.
