Ethan Herrick, WSU Athletics

LOGAN — A preseason matchup on a Friday in mid-October already had Weber State’s first time on the basketball court feeling a bit off-kilter.

Then Utah State took the court with its new defense, which could loosely be described as a matchup zone, and things got even more unsteady.

Blaise Threatt and Viljami Vartiainen kept the Wildcats afloat, Ian Martinez electrified a Utah State crowd comprised mostly of students and the Aggies cruised to an 85-66 victory at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.

The game was staged as a charity exhibition with proceeds going to CAPSA, a domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape recovery and support center in Logan. It was unknown Friday night how much the game raised for CAPSA. The Aggies have committed to play a charity exhibition in Ogden next year.

Threatt, the senior, and Vartiainen, a sophomore, combined for 25 of Weber State’s 28 first-half points, with Vartiainen nailing consecutive 3-pointers and a pair of free throws to cap a 10-0 run and to cut Utah State’s lead to 33-28 with 3:01 left in the half.

Ethan Herrick, WSU Athletics

But Utah State’s unique defense otherwise held all other WSU players without a field goal until the second half, helped the Aggies finish the half on a 9-0 run and the 42-28 halftime margin was a cushion USU would maintain the rest of the way.

“It’s a crazy defense,” USU senior and Southern Utah/Utah Valley transfer Drake Allen said. “I think it’s very hard for teams to play against and I think we’re going to catch teams off guard.”

Senior guard Miguel Tomley dropped in a paint floater at the 17:55 mark of the second half to become the third WSU player with a made field goal. WSU junior Nigel Burris, who played for USU last season, made a corner 3 to get it to 60-45 with 11 minutes left but the margin wouldn’t get closer.

Martinez threw down a breakaway, windmill dunk, slammed home an alley-oop, and banked in an alley-oop layup while fouled in the second half on the way to a game-high 17 points for a Utah State team that looked a bit more refined than the visitors.

“They played over in Europe, and they played four or five games. They’ve played in games as a team and we haven’t, and we knew that would be a little bit of a challenge,” WSU head coach Eric Duft said. “They’re a little bit ahead of where we are in terms of that … But I thought for the most part, our guys competed well. We got a lot of stuff on tape. We got to play everybody a lot of minutes.”

Ethan Herrick, WSU Athletics

Vartiainen finished with 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting in 24 minutes and Threatt had 15 points, three rebounds and three assists.

Overall, the numbers weren’t awful, aside from WSU’s 14-of-22 night at the foul line. The Wildcats finished 22 of 53 overall (42%) and 8 of 23 from deep (35%).

But it was the first time Aggie fans got to see new head coach Jerrod Calhoun, hired from Youngstown State, and his defense led by former Northern Kentucky assistant Eric Haut. Utah State’s problematic defense turned 15 Weber turnovers into a whopping 27 points.

“Our coaches harp on getting a lot of deflections and a lot of steals, and that eventually leads to transition points,” Allen said. “We want to play fast and we want to score a lot of points.”

So, despite WSU outshooting USU (6 of 24) from the 3-point line, the home team’s plus-17 advantage in points off turnovers essentially accounted for the entire final margin.

“We went over it but we didn’t know exactly how they were going to play it with their personnel here … we don’t have any film on it,” Duft said. “It was obviously a little bit of a problem tonight.”

Weber State started Threatt, Tomley, Vartiainen, Burris and Alex Tew. Senior wing Dyson Koehler did not play; he’s recovering from a procedure to address some upkeep on his rare vein issue. His recovery is not currently expected to keep him out of action long-term.

Tew and freshman point guard Saadiq Moore were each scoreless in 20 minutes apiece but Tew pulled down six boards and dished three assists while Moore led the Wildcats with four assists. Declan Cutler had four rebounds and three assists in 11 minutes as the third center, helping WSU to assist 15 of its 22 field goals.

Several late assists were finished by freshman guard Trevor Hennig, who flashed a dynamic cutting and slashing game and scored nine points, even after missing his first two attempts of the game at the rim.

Burris scored seven points and Tomley six. Tomley was a cold 1 of 7 from distance but his one make came immediately after Aggie students chanted “airball” at him for the entirety of a media timeout.

Sophomore forward Marko Sarenac got three good looks from deep and missed them all; overall, WSU likely expects to get more than a 1-for-10 effort from Tomley and Sarenac on most nights.

“Our lack of being able to attack that zone affected us on both ends and you’ve got to overcome that,” Duft said. “But those guys have produced, they’re going to be good players. They’ve got to prepare themselves a little bit better, whatever they’ve got to do to make sure they’re ready to go. But I’m not worried about those guys, they’ll be ready to play.”

After Martinez’s 17 points, Allen and Isaac Johnson each scored 12 for Utah State. Dexter Akanno added 10 points; Weber State led for the first seven minutes and it was Akanno’s two 3-pointers just before the under-12 media timeout that got USU going. Mason Falslev added seven points, six rebounds and five assists.

Weber State next plays a home exhibition Monday, Oct. 28, against Adams State, and opens the regular season at home on Monday, Nov. 4, against Northwest Indian College.

Utah State next opens the regular season at home against Alcorn State on Wednesday, Nov. 6.