Nevada rolls over No. 22 Utah State, hands Aggies their first home loss of the season

LOGAN — Tuesday evening was “Spectrum Magic” night at the Spectrum, but the only thing that disappeared was the Aggies’ perfect home record.

Nevada stunned 22nd-ranked Utah State 77-63 in front of 8,660 fans to hand the Aggies their first home defeat and first back-to-back losses of the season.

“I hate losing at home,” said USU freshman guard Mason Falslev, who scored 14 points in a losing effort.

“People come out here to support us and cheer for us, and it makes all of us feel bad when we don’t reward them. We’ve got to play harder for them, so we’ll do that.”

Utah State (19-4 overall, 7-3 in the Mountain West) was 10-0 at the Spectrum this season and hadn’t lost a home game since a Feb. 8, 2023 setback to San Diego State, a stretch of 13 straight victories.

First-year head coach Danny Sprinkle hadn’t suffered a defeat in the Spectrum since the Aggies beat his Montana State Bobcats while he was their head coach in November 2019.

“This is the second time in two games that we didn’t play hard, and I didn’t coach hard enough,” Sprinkle said, “and to Nevada’s credit, they played really well.

“Even the shots that they’d didn’t make, especially in the first half, they had the looks they wanted and we were kind of dodging bullets.”

Nevada (18-5, 5-4), which had only six wins in 30 trips to the Spectrum before Tuesday, rode the tandem of Nick Davidson and Kenyan Blackshear to the upset of the Aggies.

Davidson finished with a career-high 25 points while going 10 of 14 from the floor, including 3 of 5 from 3-point range.

The 6-foot-9 sophomore forward from California proved tough to stop down low and on the perimeter, while the 6-foot-6 Blackshear created matchup problems by regularly posting up USU’s smaller guards and ended up scoring 18 points in 28 minutes.

“I thought Davidson was terrific tonight; he really set the tone,” Sprinkle said. “We couldn’t stop him on the block, and we couldn’t stop him from 3.

“And then Blackshear really got going in the second half, and that puts you in a hard spot because he’s so big, and if you double him they’ve got shooters all over the place, especially when Davidson’s shooting the ball like that.”

Davidson also pulled down 10 rebounds to help win the battle of the boards by a 32-30 margin, helping Nevada win its second straight game after it dropped four out of five contests.

“It was a great team effort,” Nevada head coach Steve Alford said. “This is a hard place to play. That’s why they were undefeated and 19-3. Anytime you can come on the road and get a win, especially at this place, you’ve done a lot of good things.”

The Wolf Pack shot 52.9% for the game, including 55.2% in the first half when Alford’s team turned a 15-8 deficit into a 26-19 advantage thanks to an 18-4 run over a seven-minute stretch.

Nevada, which led 36-27 at halftime, stretched its lead to as many as 18 points in the second half, pushing aside an Aggie charge that saw the hosts pull to within three points with 11:33 left.

“In the second half, it felt like we couldn’t stop them at all,” Sprinkle said, “and they also went 17 for 23 from the free-throw line in the second half alone, and that’s because they were the aggressors and we weren’t.”

Utah State shot a woeful 31% from the field and just 3 of 14 from 3-point range in the first half, and it wasn’t until senior guard Ian Martinez knocked down a 3-pointer with 4:18 left before halftime that any USU player had more than one field goal.

Martinez ended up leading the Aggies with 16 points on 5 of 13 shooting, but was plagued with foul trouble most of the second half, as was junior forward Great Osobor, who finished with 11 points and four rebounds in 33 minutes.

Tied for first place in the Mountain West with Boise State heading into Tuesday’s slate of games, the Aggies are now in a four-way tie for first with the Broncos (16-7, 7-3), New Mexico (19-4, 7-3) and San Diego State (18-5, 7-3).

Utah State will host Boise State on Saturday in a game that will feature the naming of the court at the Spectrum in honor of former head coach Stew Morrill, who guided the Aggies to 402 victories in 17 seasons from 1999-2015.