BACK IN ACTION
\nUtah State heads west to face Cal State Bakersfield on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 2:30 p.m. (MT), before returning to the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum to host Omaha on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. (MT).<\/p>\n
FOLLOW ALONG
\nTuesday’s game will be streamed on ESPN+ while Saturday’s game will be available to watch on the Mountain West Network. Radio coverage for all games will be provided on 107.7 FM and the Varsity Network, with Ajay Salvesen on the call. Links to live stats for all games will be available on utahstateaggies.com.<\/p>\n
AGGIES VS EVERYONE
\nUtah State faced Cal State Bakersfield met for the first time last year, with the Aggies winning the inaugural contest, 67-51, for head coach Wesley Brooks’ first career victory. USU is 32-44 all-time against current Big West opponents.<\/p>\n
Utah State and Omaha have played twice previously, both resulting in Maverick wins. Omaha won in Logan in 1982, 89-78, and held on for an overtime victory in Omaha last year, 79-77 (OT). USU is 7-9 all-time against current members of the Summit League.<\/p>\n
DOUBLE FEATURE
\nUtah State’s game versus Omaha on Saturday will be a doubleheader at the Spectrum along with USU’s men’s team taking on UTEP at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
ICYMI A FINAL TUNE-UP RECORD BREAKERS LET IT FLY REINFORCEMENTS ON THE WAY ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD, BUT THIS IS PEER PRESSURE I AM SPEED WITH THE ASSIST ON THE UPSWING FINISHED STRONG ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF INTERNATIONAL FLARE STANDING TALL NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH TEAM ADDITIONS STARTER JACKETS UP NEXT Tickets Fans can follow USU women’s basketball on Twitter, @USUWBasketball, on Instagram, @USUWBasketball, as well as on Facebook, at \/USUWBB. Aggie fans can also follow Utah State Athletics on Twitter, @USUAthletics, on Instagram, @USUAthletics and on Facebook at \/USUAthletics.
\nUtah State fell to Utah, 90-53, in the team’s regular season opener last week at home. The Aggies won the second quarter, 23-14, to remain within reach of the Utes before a second-half surge proved to much to overcome. Senior guard\u00a0Marina Asensio<\/a>\u00a0led USU with 12 points while each of junior guard\u00a0Aaliyah Gayles<\/a>\u00a0and senior guard\u00a0Karyn Sanford<\/a>\u00a0each added 11 points.<\/p>\n
\nThe Aggies defeated Division-II San Francisco State, 71-40, in the team’s lone exhibition prior to the 2025-26 season. USU’s backcourt duo of\u00a0Aaliyah Gayles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Marina Asensio<\/a>\u00a0led the way for the Aggies.\u00a0Gayles\u00a0led Utah State with 16 points and added six rebounds and three assists while\u00a0Asensio\u00a0added 12 points.\u00a0Sophie Sene<\/a>\u00a0posted a team-high seven rebounds and\u00a0Karyn Sanford<\/a>\u00a0led the team both with four assists and two blocks.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State made 256 3-pointers last season, breaking the program record of 247 3-pointers made by the team in 2012-13. Utah State also surpassed the program record for 3-point attempts with 889 attempts from behind the arc, shattering the 2012-13 team’s mark of 752 3-point attempts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nUtah State ranked first in the MW and 30th nationally with 8.3 made 3-pointers per game. The Aggies also ranked first in the MW and seventh in the nation with 28.7 attempts from 3-point range per game this season. USU’s three-point rate (the number of 3-point attempts relative to a team’s total field goal attempts) of 40.6 percent ranked first in the MW and 10th in the nation.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nThe Aggies had 11 players averaging at least one 3-point attempt per game, tying for the third-most such players in the country and the most such players for a single season in program history. Utah State also set a program record with five players averaging at least one 3-pointer per game.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State’s 2025-26 roster is highlighted by the additions of\u00a0Aaliyah Gayles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Marina Asensio<\/a>, with the backcourt duo bringing a wealth of experience and pedigree to Logan.\u00a0Gayles\u00a0was ranked the No. 8 recruit in the nation and a Mcdonald’s All-American coming out of high school in 2022, and spent the last three seasons at USC.\u00a0Asensio\u00a0played last season at Western Michigan and her first two seasons at South Florida. She has twice played in the NCAA Tournament and earned all-MAC honorable mention last season.<\/p>\n
\nMarina Asensio<\/a>\u00a0played this summer for the Spanish U21 National Team at the FIBA 3×3 U21 Nations League in Bratislava, Slovakia. Asensio led the tournament in scoring while leading Spain to a gold medal.\u00a0Paloma\u00a0Mu\u00f1oz Herreros\u00a0also competed for Spain this summer at the U18 3×3 European Youth Olympic Festival.<\/p>\n
\nThe Aggies won back-to-back conference games last season against San Jose State and Nevada, their first time doing so since winning three-straight versus conference opponents in 2022. Utah State also swept San Jose State this season, USU’s first sweep of a conference foe since defeating Air Force twice during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe Aggies finished the 2024-25 season as the fastest team in the Mountain West, averaging 75.1 possessions per 40 minutes. New Mexico ranked second in the MW with 73.1 possessions per 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State registered 23 games this season with double-digit assists last season, far surpassing the previous year’s mark of 12 such games. The Aggies averaged 11.5 assists per game, nearly three more assists per game than 2023-24, the second-biggest improvement among teams in the Mountain West. USU’s 23 games of 10 or more assists ranks eighth all-time in program for a single season, and is the most since team recorded 24 such games in 2021-22.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State ranked at the top of the Mountain West last year and near the top of the nation in several year-over-year improvements from the 2023-24 season. USU averaged 11.8 more 3-point field goal attempts per game last season compared to 2023-24, the largest year-over-year jump in the nation. The Aggies also averaged 9.9 more field goal attempts per game (second-largest jump in the nation), 3.4 more made 3-pointers per game (third in nation) and had a 13.3 percent increase in 3-point rate over last season (second in nation). USU also averaged 2.1 more steals per game, 6.4 more points per game, 4.5 more possessions per game, 4.2 more forced turnovers per game, and 3.9 more made field goals per game, all of which are the largest year-over-year jumps among Mountain West teams this season.<\/p>\n
\nOver the last five games of the 2024-25 regular season, the Utah State offense averaged 75.2 points per game, the highest offensive output in the Mountain West during a team’s final five games of the regular season.<\/p>\n
\nThe Aggies welcome in 11 newcomers for the 2025-26 season. In addition to\u00a0Gayles\u00a0and\u00a0Asensio, Utah State brings in three more transfers in senior\u00a0Rachel Wilson<\/a>\u00a0(Wheeling), senior\u00a0Karyn Sanford<\/a>\u00a0(Tarleton State) and sophomore\u00a0Macie Brown<\/a>\u00a0(College of Southern Idaho).\u00a0Saskia Kr\u00fcger\u00a0and\u00a0Andjela Marojevic<\/a>\u00a0join USU as sophomores after spending their freshman seasons in Europe. The Aggies also bring in four true freshmen in\u00a0Aitana Rosello Lopez<\/a>,\u00a0Paloma Mu\u00f1oz Herreros,\u00a0Mirembe Twehamye Montanana<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bella Cosme<\/a>. Seniors\u00a0Sophie Sene<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jamisyn Heaton<\/a>\u00a0plus sophomore\u00a0Elise Livingston<\/a>\u00a0return from last year’s squad for USU.<\/p>\n
\nThis season, Utah State is majority international as the Aggies field eight players from overseas out of 14 players on the roster. USU boasts four players from Spain, the most in the nation, in\u00a0Asensio,\u00a0Rosello Lopez,\u00a0Mu\u00f1oz Herreros\u00a0and\u00a0Twehamye Montanana. Also represented on this year’s roster is Zambia (Kr\u00fcger), Serbia (Marojevic), Norway (Sanford) and France (Sene). This is the first time in program history that over 50 percent of Utah State’s roster is from outside the United States. The Aggies last fielded even 50 percent international players in 2018-19 (seven out of 14).<\/p>\n
\nUtah State’s roster boasts six players standing 6-foot or taller in\u00a0Sophie Sene<\/a>\u00a0(6-3),\u00a0Rachel Wilson<\/a>\u00a0(6-2),\u00a0Saskia\u00a0Kr\u00fcger\u00a0(6-1),\u00a0Paloma\u00a0Mu\u00f1oz Herreros, (6-1),\u00a0Karyn Sanford<\/a>\u00a0(6-0) and\u00a0Macie Brown<\/a>\u00a0(6-0). The Aggies fielded only three such players on last year’s roster.<\/p>\n
\nWith four players hailing from Spain out of its 14-player roster, Utah State has the highest percentage of players from Spain of anyone in the nation this season.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State returns three players with extensive starting experience in\u00a0Jamisyn Heaton<\/a>,\u00a0Elise Livingston<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sophie Sene<\/a>.\u00a0Heaton\u00a0led the Aggies last season with 27 starts while\u00a0Livingston\u00a0followed close behind with 26 starts to her name. After missing several games early in the season due to injury,\u00a0Sene\u00a0returned to the lineup to make 17 starts last season.<\/p>\n
\nUtah State faces a string of four games in nine days, two at home and two on the road, including USU’s game against Omaha. After hosting the Mavericks, USU heads to the road to take on future Pac-12 conference mate Oregon State on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at noon (MT). USU then returns home for a game against Division-II Stanislaus State on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 11 a.m. (MT), before finishing the stretch with a road contest at Oregon on Sunday, Nov. 23, at 3 p.m. (MT).<\/p>\n
\nSeason tickets, mini-plans and single-game tickets are on sale now and can be purchased\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0or by visiting the USU Ticket Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0
\n– USU –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BACK IN ACTION Utah State heads west to face Cal State Bakersfield on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 2:30…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-45838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}