How did Aggies’ first practice of 2024-25 season go? ‘It was awesome, man’

LOGAN — The 2024-25 Utah State basketball team held its first practice of the season Thursday afternoon at the Spectrum.
Well, first practice with an asterisk.
The Aggies actually got a jump on the upcoming season last month when they went on a three-game, 10-day trip to Italy and Croatia. That means first-year head coach Jerrod Calhoun was granted an extra 10 practices to help mold a roster supplemented by nine players who are just as new to the USU program as he is.
“Obviously, having a foreign trip, we’re a little ahead of the curve,” Calhoun declared. “… I mean, if you watch us play, you’ll see that they know how to play with each other. I think our guys are starting to understand their strengths.
“We still made some mental mistakes, but we had three games and 10 practices, so we were able to put in our system. So, we’re a little further ahead than most teams.”
Thursday’s practice was the first of 30 the Aggies will hold over 42 days prior to their season opener against Alcorn State on Nov. 6. It was a welcome event for a team anxious to get back on the floor after getting a taste of live-action basketball while beating three professional teams in Europe.
“It was awesome, man,” senior guard Drake Allen said of getting back on the court with the entire team. “I think we were all getting kind of antsy. We got a couple of workouts in before we went on our foreign trip, so we’ve all been kind of ready to get back to work.
“It was really nice when the European trip came around because we were already playing games in August,” Allen added. “It was amazing. And then we got back and then slowed down again, so it felt like a bit of a tease.”
Allen, a Westlake High product who previously played at Utah Valley, Southern Utah and Snow College, was voted one of USU’s three captains this season by his teammates, joining senior guard Ian Martinez and sophomore guard Mason Falslev in a leadership role.
“Mason just brings it every day; he’s been awesome, whether it’s offensive, rebounding, driving the ball, playing defense, using his voice,” Calhoun said. “Ian Martinez: I don’t know if I’ve seen a guy change so much in really five months. You know, just getting around him, he’s kind of quiet. But he’s just a wonderful kid.
“And he’s raised his level of leadership to new heights, which is only going to help him when he goes and plays, whether it’s in the NBA or professional basketball somewhere else. There’s a sense of urgency with Ian, I would say.
“And Drake Allen’s been awesome, right? Drake is a Utah kid that you know understands the tradition here; he understands the standard at Utah State, and he’s done a wonderful job. And for him to get voted on as a captain by his peers, I think that speaks volumes of what he’s done here early on.”
Falslev and Martinez were both a big part of last year’s surprising run by the Aggies, who ended up shocking the Mountain West by winning 28 games, taking the regular-season conference title and beating TCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The architect of that stunning campaign, Danny Sprinkle, left Utah State for Washington after just one season, opening the door for Calhoun, who won 118 games at Youngstown State over seven seasons.
Unlike Sprinkle, who brought the talented duo of forward Great Osobor and point guard Darius Brown II with him from Montana State, Calhoun didn’t bring anyone with him from northeast Ohio. But Calhoun does return three starters in Falslev, Martinez and junior center Isaac Johnson, while Sprinkle didn’t retain a single point from the 2022-23 season.
Sophomore forward Karson Templin and Bountiful High’s Jaxon Smith, who redshirted in 2023-24, are also back from last season, helping solidify a roster with nine new faces who will prep for the upcoming season with intrasquad practices against Weber State and Oregon.
“I don’t know about the other guys, but me, personally, I’m locked in because I know it’s a long season, so I’m focused on trying to do my best each every day,” said senior center Aubin Gateretse, a transfer from Stetson University. “I think we have big, big goals, and we want to do great things this season. So, we’re focused. We focused on taking things one day at a time and doing the best we can one day after another.”
Calhoun said he anticipates graduate guard Dexter Akanno to be out of action for the clash with the Wildcats in a couple of weeks due to a recent injury to his right wrist, but believes the Oregon State transfer won’t miss more than a couple of weeks of practice time.
However, freshman forward Isaac Davis, who didn’t see game action in Europe due to an injury, was on the court for Thursday’s practice, looking to be in far better condition than he did in mid-August.
“I thought he was phenomenal,” Calhoun said of Davis, who originally committed to BYU coming out of Hillcrest High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho. “He had nothing this summer, you know. He got hurt, so he missed a ton of time. And I think now he’s really coming into his own. You got to give the kid credit. He’s lost 25 pounds. He was 280 something, and he’s about 256 or 255 and would like to get another probably five to eight pounds that’ll naturally come off with practice.
“But he gives us something we don’t have. I mean, he loves physical contact around the rim. He’s an elite athlete, and he’s got a very, very high IQ around the basket, too. He makes rim reads, really passes out of double teams and things, so I think he can really help us.”
The Aggies, who will likely also host an as-of-yet-unannounced exhibition game in late October, were clearly feeling optimistic about the future on Thursday after the recent verbal commitments of three highly-sought-after high school recruits (point guard Brayden Boe and wings Kingston Tosi and Adlan Elamin) and the official announcement on Wednesday that Utah State will be joining the new-look Pac-12 prior to the 2026 school year.
“I was in a one-bid league, and that’s really, really stressful, right?” Calhoun noted. “So now, going into the Pac-12, I think it has a brand. It has a name. There’s a national recognition with it. So, I think it’s helped us. It’ll really help us in recruiting because a lot of the kids that we will recruit are going to be from the West Coast, so travel is easy. Parents can go see their son play.
“… You know, it’s going to be really interesting where this goes; it’s just uncertain times. College sports have changed so much, as we all know, and we’re learning every day. There’s new things going on around us. We’ve got to be forward thinking, and I think going to the Pac-12 was a great, great step.”