When Utah State captured the Western Athletic Conference championship with a 72-62 win over Nevada Saturday, the Aggies took time to celebrate.

They were headed to the NCAA Tournament — by virtue of the automatic berth granted to the WAC winner — for the sixth time in 10 seasons. It was time to party.

But the party stopped when the sun rose the next morning.

"We celebrated, we enjoyed winning the tournament that whole night," sophomore forward Tai Wesley said. "The next day, we turned our focus toward the NCAA Tournament."

The next day, the Aggies learned they would be traveling to Boise, Idaho to face No. 24 Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament's West Regional Friday.

Such is the life of a mid-major in the NCAA Tournament, when 30 wins and a conference title earns a No. 11 seed and underdog status against a No. 6-seeded Marquette team ranked as high as No. 8 in the nation this season.

"(Marquette) is as good as I thought they were," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "They create a lot of problems…They're probably going to be the best team we've played."

The Aggies won the second-most games in the nation this season, behind only No. 2 seed Memphis' (also in the West Regional) 31 wins. With a 30-4 record, Utah State chalked up its 10th-consecutive 20-victory season.

Still, there was a chance that the Aggies would have missed out on the NCAA Tournament if it hadn't been for that WAC title.

"We didn't think we'd get an at-large bid, just because our strength of schedule is kind of weak," Wesley said. "It would've been up in the air. We didn't want to have any chances of not going."

Now that they're in, the Aggies will look to slow down a Marquette offensive attack that scored 78.8 points per game this season (2nd in the Big East). Utah State has the ability to score points in bunches, too, and is 13-0 this season when scoring at least 75 points.

Still, the Aggies aren't likely to try and get in a fast-paced contest with Marquette (24-9). Morrill said Utah State will focus on stopping Marquette on the perimeter and limiting turnovers.

"Their guards are going to be a key factor in the game," Morrill said. "They are able to put the ball on the floor a lot, they are really good penetrators, they've got some really good perimeter guys with (Jerel) McNeal and (Wesley) Matthews.

"They work really hard defensively on pressuring you. If you turn it over a bunch against them, you're going to have problems."

Marquette's team dynamic changed recently when senior guard Dominic James suffered a season-ending foot injury. Morrill said he is only concerned with tape from Marquette games with junior Maurice Acker running the point.

"We've mostly worried about the games with the players they have now," he said. "To watch them a lot with the kid that got hurt playing doesn't make much sense to me…They look plenty good to me without him."

The Aggies had 171 more assists than turnovers this season, and were led by a duo of guards in Tyler Newbold and Jared Quayle. Newbold averaged 9.1 ppg and had a 4.1-1 assist to turnover ratio this season.

Senior forward Gary Wilkinson leads the Aggies in the frontcourt with 17.1 ppg and 6.9 rpg. A balanced offensive attack (three players average double-digit points) has allowed the Aggies to shoot 49.8 percent from the field on the year.

"We have a lot of guys that can score the ball, but we're really an unselfish team. Whoever is open, we're going to get them the ball," Newbold said. "We know where each other will be on the floor at all times, and we want to see each other succeed."