Utah State wins Mountain West regular season title

Utah State men’s basketball clinched an outright Mountain West regular season title on Saturday beating New Mexico 94-90. With the win, the Aggies earned the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Mountain West …

LOGAN, Utah (ABC4) — Utah State men’s basketball clinched an outright Mountain West regular season title on Saturday beating New Mexico 94-90.

With the win, the Aggies earned the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Mountain West Tournament at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

This is Utah State’s third all-time Mountain West championship, and its second outright title since joining the league in 2013. The Aggies had secured at least a share of the title prior to the game, but were able to prevent the second-place Lobos from claiming a share with the victory.

This is the second time USU has won the MW title outright, joining the 2024 squad as the only Aggie teams to do so.

The Aggies conclude the 2025-26 regular season 25-6 overall and 15-5 in conference play. This is the 12th 25-win season in program history, and the first time the team has ever won 25-plus in four-straight seasons.

The senior class showed up in a big way on senior night, combining for 62 of Utah State’s 94 points in the contest. In his final game in the Spectrum, senior guard MJ Collins Jr. led the way as he went for 27 points with a season-best six rebounds, an assist and a steal. This was the second-best scoring performance of the season for Collins Jr.

“It means a lot. Not too many people are able to say that they won anything, especially not in college. With this group of guys, coaching staff, I’m fortunate to say that I’m a champion. That’s something that nobody will ever forget, and it’s what we live for. This was our goal coming in on June 1st, when we first figured out who everybody was and were seeing each other for the first time, so it’s just an unbelievable achievement to be able to carry it out from June 1st up until today,” said Collins.

Other seniors honored following the game included guards Drake Allen and Kolby King, and forwards Zach Keller and Garry Clark. Allen going for 14 points, Keller for eight, King finishing with seven and Clark going for six.

The Aggies led from nearly start-to-finish in the victory, leading for over 38 minutes while trailing for less than one. Despite holding the lead most of the way, New Mexico was on the Aggies heels throughout thanks in large part to a 32-point performance from Jake Hall.

“First of all, that’s an NCAA tournament team if I’ve seen one. I really think Coach Olen is one of the best in the country. I think Jake Hall, as we all saw tonight, how good of a player he really is, just a tremendous shooter. I haven’t seen anything like it from a freshman in a long time. There’s a reason he set the record,” said Utah state head coach Jerrod Calhoun. “I thought our guys were just resilient, and I thought we got great efforts from a lot of guys. Obviously, MJ carried us in the second half. We shared the ball, made timely plays, and it was just a great college basketball game.”

Utah State set the tone early with 10 makes in its first 15 shots, opening up a double-digit advantage six minutes in at 17-7. The Aggies remained decisively in front through the rest of the half, until a 7-0 New Mexico run to close the half gave the Lobos their first and only lead of the contest, going into the locker room up 43-42.

The second half started the same as the first, the Aggies pouncing to quickly regain control. USU opened the final 20 minutes with a 12-2 run out of the gates, sparked by back-to-back triples from Collins Jr.

The Aggies will now hit the road for Las Vegas for the Mountain West tournament taking place next week from March 11-14th. The Aggies will be the No. 1-seed and will play their first game at 1 p.m.

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Source: Utah News