NCAA Basketball: Ranking the final 10 unbeaten teams for 2022-23 season

7. Utah State

While San Diego State is certainly still the favorite in the Mountain West, this Utah State squad has already started turning heads in Ryan Odom’s second season on campus. It’s not just that the Aggies have started the season a perfect 7-0, it’s how they’ve gotten there, facing a relatively decent schedule through the first month of the season.

None of their first seven opponents are super impressive, but none of them are pushovers either. They’ve gotten double-digits home wins over Bradley, Oral Roberts, and Santa Clara and got an overtime road win at San Diego back on November 17th. Their most recent win was the biggest head-turner, as they handled San Francisco by 18 points to maintain that perfect start to the season.

Steven Ashworth and Taylor Funk are both averaging at least 17 points a game, with Funk being a grad transfer from Saint Joseph’s and Ashworth really coming into his own this season. Aside from Funk, the Aggies have gotten considerable production from fellow transfer forward Daniel Akin, who’s averaging 13.7 points and 7.6 rebounds a game, numbers just shy of Funk to this point. There’s a lot of talent here, even beyond the names we’ve mentioned, and it’s clicking in the right way so far for Odom.

Matchups with Loyola Marymount and Seattle await in the coming weeks, though the hardest challenges to that perfect start will certainly come in Mountain West play. The Aggies look the best of the three unbeaten MWC teams, but surviving some of these conference road tests will be quite the challenge, especially with trips to Boise State, Nevada, and San Diego State on the tabs for January. Utah State looks great and has won games in different ways, we’ll just have to see how long that lasts.