Cover Story: Utah State Caps MWC Tenure With Title Sweep

LAS VEGAS – One era ended and another began as the purple and silver confetti encompassed the Aggies, their Mountain West trophy secure in senior Drake Allen's steady hands; their months of work vindicated before a national audience.

The times are changing in Logan. Jerrod Calhoun, a conference tournament champion for the first time in his 14 years as a head coach, spoke with CBS' Evan Washburn mere moments after the buzzer blared on Utah State's 73-62 title bout victory over San Diego State. He praised his team's defense, stellar for the entirety of this event, before slipping into a familiar refrain.

"We were fourth or fifth in rev share/NIL. The school has not given us a dollar in two years. These people up here supported this team for the last two years. Jim Laub was unable to come to the game tonight, he was a huge part of this success. I hope he's watching, I hope he's proud. He gave the message today to the guys. Our guys knew, we wanted this for Logan. All these fans. It's unbelievable."

While the actual figure is still being determined, Utah State will enter a very different world this offseason. Athletic director Cameron Walker told play-by-play man Scott Garrard on March 13 that the Aggies are looking to triple the roughly $2.4 million budget spent on this group. His athletic department has been focused on its fundraising bonanza, the "Show Me" campaign, for the better part of two months. It intends to invest significantly in the program that just showed it, Cache Valley, and the nation writ large exactly what Utah State basketball can be as it moves into the Pac-12.

On Saturday afternoon in its fifth and final Mountain West title game clash with the Aztecs, splitting the series 3-2 in Utah State's favor, the Aggies were Calhoun's vision for his squad brought to life. The entirety of the 10-man rotation contributed offensively, steadfastly attacking San Diego State's stout defense from all angles until it finally broke. Even when the Aztecs were at their best, Utah State chipped away, absorbing the inevitable blows around the basket and disregarding any previous failure – playing green, as it were.

The Aggies intended to give Brian Dutcher's side a taste of their own medicine, patiently wearing them down and taking over during the final stretch, as the Aztecs have done so often over the years in this tournament. Most teams lack the athleticism and depth to pull that off, but Calhoun built this Utah State group with games like this one in mind.

"I'm extremely, extremely proud of the toughness level that this group of guys came to Vegas with," Calhoun said. "We were not going to be bullied. We were going to be the bully. I kind of deem this our redemption tour. UNLV beat us twice, Nevada beat us at Nevada, and obviously we got embarrassed a couple of weeks ago by the Aztecs. We were coming in here to be the bully, we were coming in here for a redemption tour, and it certainly was accomplished."

Utah State dictated its terms on the defensive end from the game's opening possession. San Diego State's first action, a Magoon Gwath screen that Sean Newman rejected, went nowhere. Zach Keller cut Newman off before he could gain any ground, MJ Collins put himself between the ball and Gwath, and Allen inched into the paint as the low help defender if needed. In this case, he wasn't. Keller and Collins reset onto their respective assignments without issue, and San Diego State went into its next look, a dribble handoff to Miles Byrd.

Byrd found no space against Collins, nor did Gwath against Keller or Reese Dixon-Waters against Adlan Elamin, and San Diego State reset again at the top of the key. With the shot clock running down, Gwath tried to beat Keller on the dribble, nearly lost the ball to Collins' help defense, and ultimately settled for a fading turnaround mid-range jumper that fell well short of the rim and landed with Allen.

San Diego State got itself on the board first all the same, as Byrd nabbed a lackluster Keller pass and converted it into a fast-break layup, but that would prove an unsustainable path for the Aztecs. Utah State turned the ball over only five more times across the next 39 minutes, and San Diego State turned those giveaways into only six points.

The Aggies were far more composed offensively than they had been in their regular season meetings with SDSU, searching for the best available looks without putting the ball in harm's way. That's how they opened their scoring, working the ball around the top of the key until they could set up a pindown screen for Collins with Mason Falslev as the trigger man. His pass was right on time, Keller stuck around for a key ball screen, and Collins drew a favorable matchup with Newman, rising and connecting from the elbow to knot the score at 2-2.

"We looked at our regular season," Falslev said. "I think a lot of times when we took bad shots or maybe didn't do the best offensive plays, it led to the other team getting good defensive plays. I think everyone bought in and just said, 'Look, we're not settling, we're going to get to the paint and we're going to play off two and we're going to make the right plays, every play, possession after possession.' I think that's why we were so successful the past three games."

Dixon-Waters hit back with a tough jumper in the lane near the end of the shot clock, set up by a dangerous skip pass from Newman, which Utah State could live with. The more cross-court passes San Diego State had to launch, the more chances the Aggies would have to nab the ball and run. After Keller grabbed an offensive board and dished for an Elamin triple at the other end, Utah State's defense collected its first reward. Allen picked Newman's pocket just as he crossed mid-court and outran the two nearest Aztecs for a layup to push the lead to three.

Then, another gift from Newman. Playing in the place of injured freshman Elzie Harrington, the undersized Louisiana Tech transfer was a frequent target of Utah State's defensive aggression, and fell victim this time to Elamin's help defense, stepping in from the wing and knocking the ball from the driving Newman's hands off his leg and out of bounds. He ended the game as one of six Aztecs with multiple turnovers.

Allen and Falslev combined for some great fundamental offense at the other end, the former collapsing the defense with a wide drive to the baseline while the latter cut from the opposite wing, collecting Allen's dump-off pass and splitting two defenders for a layup. Plays like that can mess with San Diego State's switching man defense, which has to strain to handle good off-ball movement while also cutting off a driving ball-handler.

"They switch everything, and I talked to Joe Mazzulla about this," Calhoun said. "I talk about him a lot because I think he's one of the best coaches in the world, and I have access to him pretty much whenever I need him. He talked about switching defenses and how it's the hardest thing to go against, not just for college players but NBA players. When you switch everything, you have a mismatch on the glass. You've got their bigs around the perimeter. I thought we did a really good job competing on the glass.

"Against mismatches, we ran some Spain actions and some in-screen actions. Our staff is very connected. They know our system really well, and we're able to adjust throughout the game, whether it's Spain action, in-screens, off-ball screens or isolations. We can score in a variety of ways, but switching is difficult. I thought we did a nice job of making reads tonight."

The lead stuck at five as Tae Simmons and Keller traded baskets, and dropped to three on a Gwath second-chance bucket ahead of the first TV timeout. That sparked a three-minute block in San Diego State's favor: The Aggies went scoreless across their next three possessions while Gwath hounded them on the offensive glass, keeping alive several possessions and pushing SDSU into a 13-11 lead.

Utah State let it spiral no further. Falslev drew a perimeter mismatch with Gwath, drove hard to the middle of the lane and drew a foul on Taj DeGourville. The play almost cost Utah State dearly as Falslev came up grimacing and holding his ankle, but he recovered enough during a stint on the bench to continue – after hitting two free throws to level the scoreboard at 13, of course.

Garry Clark and Karson Templin were the next Aggies to make their scoring debuts, answering two BJ Davis free throws and a Dixon-Waters jumper, respectively, to maintain that tie. Just before the under-12 TV timeout, the Aggies defense struck again to split the deadlock. With Pharaoh Compton looking to back Clark down, Collins and Elijah Perryman snapped in on him like the jaws of Utah State's stop unit, easily taking the ball to create a 3-on-2 fast-break chance.

The transition game has been too sloppy at times for Utah State in the past month, but on this occasion (and for the entire tournament), it was right on the money. Perryman took the ball to the left while Collins ran the right lane with Templin trailing in the center. Collins' first thought was an alley-oop over Dixon-Waters and DeGourville, but when the two converged on Perryman, he changed course and flared out to the corner. Perryman dribbled inside to the free-throw line while Templin crashed down the lane, thoroughly distracting the two Aztec defenders and creating plenty of room for a kick-out to Collins. Davis recovered well enough to contest the shot after chasing the play down, but Collins hit anyway, giving Utah State a 20-17 edge.

Collins stayed hot on Utah State's next possession, matching two Compton free throws with a perfectly timed putback dunk, crashing the lane when Templin launched a corner three and slamming it home with two hands for safety. The Aggie guards combined for 18 rebounds on the day, accounting for half of Utah State's overall glass effort.

"We know if the guards rebound, we can push it," Collins said. "Coach has been on my behind about rebounding. It's winning time. You put everything out the door, whether it's scoring points or (anything else). When it's winning time, make all the winning plays. That's what we came to do in this tournament, and it showed tonight, the night before and also the night before that. The focal point was, 'Don't get bullied,' and we didn't get bullied. That's why we're the champs."

"I think you also have to give credit to our bigs," Allen chimed in, always the diplomat in Utah State's backcourt trio. "They do most of the dirty work down there. We just get to fly in and grab rebounds. Those guys battled all night, and sometimes it doesn't show up on the stat sheet when we just run and jump in there and grab them."

Indeed, Clark had played a key role in Collins' highlight, drawing the focus of both Simmons and Byrd with his box-out, clearing the lane for Collins to slip through undisturbed. The senior forward would provide myriad highlight moments, including a second-chance three-point play on Utah State's next possession to push the lead to six, but he, Keller and Templin still did much of their best work away from the CBS spotlight cameras. Those game-changing plays aren't possible against a Dutcher-led team without players willing and able to do the little things as well, if not better than the Aztec big men.

Playing with Falslev still on the bench, Utah State's second unit eventually faded a bit, allowing San Diego State to draw back within three after a Dixon-Waters triple and a Gwath hook shot split by a Perryman-to-Kolby King fast-break layup. Again, Utah State could live with that. The game was tied when Falslev went down, and he returned to a three-point lead. That's a win.

It looked, for the first 30 seconds or so, as if the return of Allen, Falslev and Keller to the floor might severely alter the game's dynamic before halftime. With about seven minutes to play, Falslev paid Allen back for the dump-off assist he had gifted him earlier. Set up by a Collins drive and kick, Falslev fooled Byrd with a pump fake and probed the lane, attracting more than enough defensive attention for Allen to sneak onto the baseline and convert a late Falslev pass into an easy dunk. Byrd answered at the other end and Utah State's stars got busy again, finding and hitting a Falslev-to-Collins pindown three-pointer to take a six-point lead, 32-26.

"These two guys right here, they take on a lot of pressure," Allen said of Collins and Falslev. "A lot of people key in on them so it leaves me with a lot of space. On defense I try to be as active as I can, set the tone, and usually when we're active on defense it gets me going on offense."

Collins and Falslev would combine for 16 points, three rebounds and three assists in the opening frame, but they were largely contained through the first-half buzzer after the Collins triple. A Falslev layup was the only additional score for the Aggies in the last 6:55 of the period, and though San Diego State didn't light the world aflame offensively, it did just enough to steal a one-point halftime edge, 35-34.

It wasn't the result the Aggies had hoped for, but as with the other setbacks the game presented, they took it in stride. A half-closing 9-2 run spread over nearly seven minutes is not fatal for a team that had built a six-point cushion through the first 13 minutes. Utah State had to bury it, move on, and find some new answers offensively for the latter frame – Calhoun's field of expertise, particularly when he's had the chance to review the first-half tape, as he always does during the break.

"I think it's just a mindset," Allen said. "We came in the last couple of days and we were watching the game last night, and it didn't matter who was going to win. We owed it to whoever came in today to kick their butts. Every game we've been on edge. They out-rebounded us a little bit in the first half, and you've got to adjust. They got us pretty good on some free throws. We just had to keep battling. I think that our team was very resilient. When bad plays hit, we didn't duck our heads and run away from them. We just keep on going through people's chests, keep on boxing out and keep on playing tough."

Dutcher needed to see only 95 seconds of basketball in the second half to concede that his coaching counterpart had gotten the better of him. Restarting play, the Aggies began with a pair of handoffs between Allen and Falslev, testing the defense's appetite for switching while getting the ball to the right spot on the floor. Allen took over just a few feet from the mid-court logo as Falslev moved out to the corner, and Utah State broke into a Spain action.

Keller set the first screen at the top of the key, which Newman ducked under to keep up with Allen as he worked toward his right hand. Keller's defender, Simmons, stayed fairly level with the screen, ready to cut off any hard drive and push Allen wide until Newman could recover onto him. What differentiates a Spain PNR is the backscreen on the screener's defender, provided this time by Collins.

San Diego State handled it pretty well, all things considered, but it was a step late across the board. Simmons had to abandon his coverage of Allen to get around the Collins screen and roll with Keller, leaving Newman without the support to catch up while putting Collins' defender, Dixon-Waters, in a one-on-one situation with a driving Allen. The senior point guard had been encouraged at the break to run the play as he read it from the defense, and the defense was giving him a layup that he would not miss.

An uninspiring Aztec possession at the other end closed with Gwath stepping out of bounds, and Calhoun dialed up another one. This time, Collins screened down from the free-throw line to the block for Keller, who ran to the top of the key and screened Newman for Allen. In theory, Keller would then turn and set a down screen for Collins, looping to the top of the arc to await a pass from Allen. The pass never came, because Newman called for Simmons to switch onto Allen through Keller's screen well after he really should have. Simmons tried his best to recover, but Allen was already in the air and firing the three-pointer that would give Utah State a 39-35 lead.

"We had a Spain action coming into the second half, and (coach Calhoun) just told me, 'Make your reads.' Coach gives us a lot of freedom," Allen said. "That's why on offense we can be so dangerous. That was the read. We had a great back screen, I think it was MJ, letting me get downhill. And then the next play, another draw-up, and they fell asleep on defense and I could step into a wide-open three."

Now the Aggies were hungry, sensing real fatigue from San Diego State for the first time and an opportunity to extend the lead further. They isolated Byrd defensively and baited him into just the skip pass they had been looking for. Collins deflected it nearly as soon as it left Byrd's hand, Falslev caught it on the fly, and four Aggies ran as one down the floor. Allen again did the honors, taking the wind from Byrd's shot-blocking sails with a jump stop in the paint before rising for the easy, controlled layup.

Dutcher took a timeout, his team suddenly in a six-point hole with the HURD contingent in Las Vegas brought to life. San Diego State may have held a small edge in total numbers, but Utah State's crowd was far louder all afternoon.

"The fans traveled for us," Collins said. "On their spring break, they gave their time up to come and support us."

Meanwhile, Calhoun rejoiced. A year ago, Utah State couldn't have relied on Allen to step up as he just had, trusting him to read the defense and make the plays without hesitation, even if it meant taking the scoring responsibility upon himself. It couldn't have overwhelmed San Diego State's offense with lateral quickness and cohesive team defense. It's a different world of possibilities entirely for Calhoun and Co. to work with.

"That's our defense," Collins said. "We know we have to get out in transition and get easy buckets. When we're able to turn teams over, it makes everything much better. We get going, and it's like the defensive energy is contagious because we're just flying around and playing green. When we can turn a team over and also take care of the ball, I think we're unbeatable."

One 7-0 run is not enough to sink San Diego State, fatigue or not, but it gave Utah State a much-needed margin for error, shifting the pressure back to the Aztecs. Slowly, they proved ready for it, cutting the margin to four with two Simmons free throws, then to two on a Davis jumper. Falslev sent the half to its first TV timeout with a statement play, isolating the MWC DPOY in Byrd and breaking him down for a post score, but Dixon-Waters brought it back from the break with two free throws to keep the gap at two, 43-41.

Davis tied it on a paint jumper, and after Byrd blocked a King try, Dixon-Waters put the Aztecs back in front, 45-43. Now it was Utah State's turn to handle the pressure. Collins couldn't hit on a good look from the wing, but the Aggies were fortunate at the other end – the open three-point shooter in transition from Collins' miss was Byrd, who predictably missed off the front iron, the ball landing with Clark.

Seeing that the offense was struggling, Allen went about manufacturing some points at the opposite end. He's still not a great free-throw shooter, but the big guard knows how to get to the stripe, and he pulled Utah State a point closer with a split trip after essentially forcing Davis to foul him on a drive. San Diego State missed another three in response and Allen did the same thing, this time targeting Dixon-Waters in transition. He hit the first, missed the second, and the game was tied again at 45 with a little over 12 minutes to play. More importantly, Allen was putting Utah State back onto its original game plan, from which it had strayed during San Diego State's push into the lead.

"Quit launching threes," Calhoun said. "It's a really simple formula. Establish yourself in the paint, whether with a post-up or a drive, get two feet in the paint, collapse the defense, and get the ball on the rim. I thought we did a really good job of competing on the glass.

"We wanted to play extremely fast. We knew we had to steal the basketball and get out and force tempo, we didn't want to get the Aztecs' defense set. It's one of the best defenses we see every year. We knew it would be a grind-it-out game, so we had to get out, run and steal the basketball."

The Aggies regained possession with the score still tied, thanks largely to Allen's flawless defense on DeGourville from screen to shot, and Collins picked up where his point guard left off. He took a dribble handoff from Clark at the top of the key, caught Dixon-Waters napping just enough to find a lane, and exploded to the rim, hammering a one-handed slam down over the chasing Compton.

It was his first bucket of the half, and the ideal spark for more to come. Just a possession later, after a split free throw trip for Newman, Collins isolated Dixon-Waters again and used a Falslev screen to get into the lane where he stopped, spun, and floated the ball just over Compton for two more points. The MWC tournament MVP would ignite again, but took a step back from center stage for the next few minutes.

After back-to-back Aztec baskets from Dixon-Waters and Davis, it was Falslev's turn to play bully ball. He picked out DeGourville as an ideal target and drove him to the basket like he was hardly there – no small feat against the 6-5, 211-pound sophomore – to put Utah State back on top.

Neither team would score again until just before the under-8 timeout, when Clark secured an offensive board and finished off a layup to make it a three-point Aggie edge, which held through dueling Dixon-Waters and Falslev layups, 55-52. The scoreboard stuck there for about two more minutes, though the action in the interim was far from dull.

Elamin made one of the defensive plays of the game with 6:52 on the clock, rotating over late and stonewalling the 6-6, 230-pound freshman Simmons on what he had thought would be an easy dunk. The Aggie youngster missed a jumper at the other end, but Utah State kept up its defensive intensity and forced a Davis turnover when he tried to drive late in the shot clock. Finally, Utah State found some separation. Collins did the scoring, flying around a screen and burying a wing triple, but Clark was the hero of the possession. He kept it alive when Allen missed a try in the lane, recovering the loose ball and drawing a Gwath foul, and he set the crucial screen to free up his teammate for the jumper.

Davis pulled SDSU back within four at the line, and Utah State went right back to the well. Starting in the corner near the Aggie bench, Collins ran Dixon-Waters through an Elamin screen and across the paint, where Keller waited to pin the veteran Aztec defender. Falslev's pass arrived right on time and Keller's screen was perfect, trapping Dixon-Waters on his right shoulder while Collins faded left toward the baseline and away from his now-desperate defender. Frustrated and seeing no other option, Dixon-Waters barreled over Keller and arrived in time to at least get a hand in Collins' face.

The whistle blew during the ball's ascent and cut off just in time for the crowd pop to flood the CBS microphones as the triple rattled in. Collins' shot would count, as would the two Keller free throws to follow.

On the official play-by-play, it took all of three seconds for Utah State's four-point lead to become nine, 63-54. In reality, it was closer to one second. One game-changing, season-validating, career-defining second. Collins and Keller came to Utah State as players beaten down by three years of demoralizing high-major basketball, their talents overlooked and their confidence levels shattered as they were cast aside. They'll leave as immortal figures in Aggie history, their finest moment archived and enjoyed forever in Logan, a singular reminder of all they came to embody.

"I got to chirping a little bit," Collins said. "Credit to coach, he always tells me to make the right read. As I'm coming off the pindowns and I'm taking a rearview peek at Reese Dixon to see how he's guarding me, I curled one of them and hit the three. And the second one, he tried to shoot the gap and I bumped it. It was a great screen by Zach, great pass by Mason, and the shot goes down. It was a five-point swing right there, Zach goes to the line, hits two free throws. It was huge."

"He's MVP for a reason," Allen added. "That's what he does. Whenever we needed a big shot down the stretch, he was ready to take them. We're very confident putting the ball in his hands. We know he's going to make big shots, he's been doing it all year."

Across the closing 4:58, with San Diego State thoroughly demoralized and finally exhausted, the other Aggies took turns putting their stamp on the performance. Gwath missed a three at the other end and Collins wrestled the rebound away from Simmons before dishing it to Allen. The ball came back to Collins on the wing through a very similar (if not the exact same) action, and though he could have taken a heat check without hearing any complaints, he's grown beyond that.

San Diego State doubled him when he caught the ball, so he made the smart play, jumping to get a pass over Simmons and into the paint, where Elamin stood unguarded for an alley-oop lay-in. Gwath brought the gap back to single digits with a second-chance layup, and Clark paid him right back, crashing through Simmons and gathering a Falslev miss that he then laid up and in over Gwath's outstretched right arm.

One of few players yet to enjoy a truly signature moment, the mayor of Logan himself would get his chance after the under-4 break. Gwath sent the game to its final timeout with a three-pointer, drawing San Diego State within eight at 67-59 as the clock ticked under three minutes. A quiet sense of unease drifted across the Aggie faithful in the stands. They had seen this story before from the Aztecs, and they didn't much care for how it usually ended. Even with a multi-possession cushion, the pressure shifted back to Utah State.

Falslev didn't care one bit about crowd anxiety or game pressure, and he certainly wasn't concerned with the man standing opposite him as the shot clock dropped under 15 seconds. Davis couldn't stop him. He broke into a driving lane to the right of the paint with help from a Clark screen, opened his shoulders to the Aggie bench and backed Davis down. Just before reaching the block, Falslev stopped, picked up his dribble, and spun back to his right, pausing to fake a pass before continuing his pirouette under Davis' now-exposed left arm. He had just enough room to step through and scoop the ball up and over the nearby Gwath, kissing it off the glass for two.

Dixon-Waters forced up a bad three to end San Diego State's ensuing possession, and Allen wasted no time putting the ball back in Falslev's hands at the top of the key. He had already made Byrd and Davis, two of San Diego State's best defenders, look foolish on isolation scores. Now he held the ball only a few feet from San Diego State's superb seven-footer, as fearsome a defender as any in the conference. Elamin set a screen that Falslev considered using, but he decided otherwise and reset to the wing, his teammates all clearing out to the opposite side of the floor. He wanted this one all to himself.

Falslev took two dribbles, one to step back behind the three-point line and the next to gather himself, sizing Gwath up. Growing up only a few miles from campus, Falslev has seen plenty of Aggie stars in spots just like this one, finished more often than not with a crossover into a three-pointer. It's a shot he can take, but it's not his shot in the way it was Sam Merrill's or Jaycee Carroll's. If he could choose his moment like this, a luxury so rarely afforded, he might as well make it his own.

So, Falslev used the latter dribble to set himself, left foot back, right foot up, and did what he does better than anyone to ever don the Aggie blue and white – he drove to his right, easily beat Gwath to the basket, and scooped the dagger off the glass and through the net. Any lingering doubt vanished, replaced by the dawning recognition that Utah State would be champions of the tournament just as they were outright champions of the regular season, a program first in the Mountain West achieved at the last possible chance before this offseason's departure.

"We got 46 in the paint," Calhoun said. "We doubled them up. That's not easy to do. It's not easy to go 4-1 against San Diego State in two years. We're batting a pretty good percentage against coach Dutch and his group, to be honest with you. You have to match their intensity. We don't have the physicality and the strength, but our guys had heart. Our guys had attention to detail.

"There's a process to win a game. There's a mental game and a physical game. In the hotel, we were locked in. Our guys were very, very locked in for 35-40 minutes, and they didn't like the way the game ended at San Diego State in the second half. They embarrassed us. They outplayed us and they out-coached us. Our guys were just not going to let that happen today."

The final two minutes were a formality, as the Aggies had beaten every Aztec there was to beat. Dutcher called off the dogs early, having seen more than enough basketball to know where this one was headed. The Aggies were the tougher, sharper team. They wanted it more. They were just better – better on offense, better on defense, better on the margins, and better on the sidelines.

And finally, they were champions of the last Mountain West tournament they'll ever attend, unquestioned and largely unrivaled for three days of transcendent basketball, almost certainly the best Calhoun has overseen in his 14 years as a head coach.

He had recognized in Utah State the potential for more when he took the job in the spring of 2024. A little under two years later, as he waved what remained of the net high above his head and looked out at his players, then at the floor filled nearly end to end with fans, many of whom had donated what they could to construct this roster, he saw the proof. This year and well beyond it, the Aggies can do more. Much, much more.

"The strength of this team is its numbers, and it's a team," Calhoun said. "There are very few team-teams left. There are a lot of teams that have talent, but they don't have both. They don't put we over me. These guys have done that time and time again. I've said it over and over, this is one of the most connected groups I've ever been around in my head coaching career and my assistant career.

"You don't sleep as a coach. How could you? This is the greatest time in the world for college basketball coaches and players and fans. Buckle up, the next three weeks could be really good… This team has a real shot. We don't want to be just happy to be in the tournament. We want to make a run and make history again and get to a second weekend, which has never been done here."