Utah State wins first outright MWC title in program history with dramatic victory over New Mexico

LOGAN — Just a few hours before the start of Daylight Saving Time, the Utah State Aggies managed to maintain some daylight between them and the rest of the Mountain West Conference and secure its first-ever outright Mountain West title by virtue of a hard-fought win over New Mexico Saturday night at the Spectrum.

“It’s just awesome,” USU coach Danny Sprinkle said following Utah State’s nail-biting 87-85 victory over the Lobos. “It was like it was meant to be that we would finish it the way we did here, not winning it on the road, but winning it here for the fans. They deserved this to be done in the Spectrum.”

Coming into Saturday’s game, the Aggies (26-5, 14-4) had secured at least a share of the Mountain West title, but thanks to their fifth-straight victory, Utah State has the championship all to itself and will be the No. 1 seed next week in the Mountain West tournament in Las Vegas.

USU will face the winner of Wednesday’s game between the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

“I really don’t have the words to describe this team,” said Sprinkle, who was hired away from Montana State and inherited zero points from last year’s USU squad.

“This will never be done in Division I basketball again — winning a Mountain West championship after you don’t return a point — not at the Power Six level anyway.

“What these guys have done, and how they’ve come together and care and love each other, is real.”

The difference in Saturday’s intense game, which featured 16 ties and 13 lead changes, ended up being another clutch 3-pointer by Darius Brown II.

Playing in his final game at the Spectrum, the senior point guard broke an 84-84 tie by burying a trey with less than five seconds left.

“I don’t even know for sure, but that might be four or five game-winning shots that Darius has hit for us in conference play,” Sprinkle said. “When this team really needs him, they know they can count on him.

“It was just the perfect ending to the regular season.”

Following an Aggie timeout with 29.5 seconds to go, USU guard Ian Martinez surveyed the court from the top of the key, then suddenly passed the ball off to Brown, who then shot an entry pass into forward Great Osobor in the paint.

When the Lobos (22-9, 10-8) collapsed on USU’s leading scorer, Osobor quickly returned the ball to Brown, who delivered the game-winner.

“Coach is always getting mad at me for not moving off the ball, so I wanted to find the right area for Great to find me,” Brown explained. “And then Great made a great pass out, and I shot it from there.

“It felt good all the way. I was obviously ready to shoot because the shot clock was going down, and sometimes that makes you more comfortable because you know there’s no other choice but to shoot it.”

New Mexico called a timeout following Brown’s shot, and USU fouled Lobos guard Jaelen House on purpose with 2.8 seconds to go.

House knocked down the first free throw to pull New Mexico to within two points, then fired off a line drive attempt on his second shot.

Even though the attempt clearly didn’t hit the rim, the officials allowed play to continue and House came up with the rebound.

House’s shot attempt apparently came after the final buzzer, setting off a huge celebration on Stew Morrill Court as much of the sellout crowd of 10,270 converged on the floor.

Sprinkle said he saw that House’s second shot missed the rim — “Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that,” he said — and kept asking an assistant if the game was actually over, even as joyful Aggie fans surrounded him.

After the game was over, lead official Mike Littlewood released a statement to the media: “We did not notice on the court that the ball did not hit the rim, so we let play continue until the clock expired.”

Fortunately for the officials, that missed call didn’t affect the outcome of the contest, and the Aggies and their fans were able to celebrate the outright title for the next half hour, eventually cutting down the nets on the west basket as Utah Governor Spencer Cox and First Lady Abby Cox, both Utah State graduates, looked on.

Playing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” at the end of their final regular season game certainly never seemed a possibility heading into the season for the Aggies, who were picked to finish ninth in the Mountain West’s preseason poll.

“I thought we were probably going to have a good season after we won the (Cayman Islands Classic),” Brown said. “I felt like we were a good team. Then when we beat Colorado State — my first win ever over a ranked team — I was like, ‘Oh, we belong here.’”

“... I’m glad that we got to prove everybody wrong.”

Martinez led Utah State with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting Saturday, while Osobor totaled 21 points and 12 rebounds while playing just under 39 minutes.

Brown, who played all but 28 seconds of the game, finished with 19 points, nine assists and six rebounds.

Freshman guard Mason Falslev, who was plagued by foul trouble much of the night, contributed 10 points and hardly seemed affected after turning his ankle at the end of USU’s win at San Jose State on Wednesday.

Utah State, which trailed 44-39 at halftime Saturday, shot 53.6% as a team, including a 6-of-20 performance from 3-point range. The Aggies, who surrendered a season-high 99 points to the Lobos in a loss at Albuquerque on Jan. 16, struggled to slow New Mexico’s high-powered offense all night long.

Playing without senior guard Jamal Mashburn Jr., who was out with an illness, the Lobos finished with five players in double figures. While House (15 points) and sophomore guard Donovan Dent (17 points) had good games, the big man trio of Mustapha Amzil (18 points), JT Toppin (14 points) and Nelly Joseph (13 points) went a combined 19-28 from the floor.

“It’s hard because they’re so big and athletic,” Sprinkle said of the Lobos. “... And they have great touch. It seemed like they didn’t miss anything from 6 feet in tonight.”

Utah State, which led by as many as six points and trailed by as many as five points in the first half, quickly got out of its five-point hole at intermission thanks to two baskets from Falslev and Isaac Johnson and a pair for free throws by Osobor in the first two minutes of the second half.

But after building a 52-48 advantage, the Aggies surrendered a 17-7 run to New Mexico that left the guests up by six points with 10:51 left.

But a timeout by Sprinkle followed by back-to-back scores by USU’s Kalifa Sakho and Martinez helped the Aggies stop the bleeding, and the battle was back on.

New Mexico tied the scored at 78-78 with 3:20 to go, but after Sakho — a 51.9% free-throw shooter this season — knocked down two free throws, the Aggies never trailed again.

“In practice, he never missed; in games, it’s different,” Sprinkle said of his 6-foot-11 forward. “But I remember that I told (director of basketball analytics) Anthony (Lorenzo) that he was going to make them both.”

New Mexico tied the score twice in the last 65 seconds, the final time at 84-84 on House’s 15-foot jumper with 35 seconds remaining.

That set up the perfect ending for Brown, who was playing in front of his parents, Darius and Leah Brown, who made the trip up from California for his Senior Night celebration.

“They ran what we call a nail piece,” UNM head coach Richard Pitino said of Brown’s game-winning play. “It’s a guard-to-guard ball screen. We switched it properly and then they threw it into Osobor. I didn’t mind the coverage. I thought we did a good job. You got to dig it out. The kid’s really hurting you.

“He just made a tough shot. He was a couple of feet behind the 3-point line so I didn’t think it was necessarily a defensive breakdown as much as it was a great offensive play by them.”