Thursday, December 7, 2017

NM State Aggies vs Prairie View A&M Panthers Men’s Basketball 12-3-17


I was still buzzing about yesterday’s Women’s Basketball and the football game.  Today’s Men’s Basketball game would be a nice way to indulge in some extra Aggie Love.  I’d listened to the guys’ last game, which was in El Paso versus UTEP.  The Miners’ coach had very suddenly quit earlier in the week from health concerns, so the team was a bit down and in transition.  The Aggies won 80-60.  Johnny McCants had another highlight reel jam in the game.  They had a great crowd of over 7,000 there for a Thursday night and up against a Cowboys’ game.  This was also the back end of a double header at the Don Haskins Center, where the Women played the UNM Lobos.  I wish NMSU had scheduled their basketball this weekend like that, instead of pairing the Aggie Women up with the football game.

                                         

I’d planned on trying to go to a couple Men’s games this season, since they’d scheduled some weekend afternoon games.  Embarrassingly, I also wanted an excuse to wear my new shirt that I’d picked up on sale at the University bookstore.  I’d gotten free tickets for this game from work.  Along with those tickets were passes to the Hub, the hospitality suite.  (That’s my nickname for it anyway.)  Since I had two tickets, I asked my co-worker, Jacob, to come with me.  I know he’s a big basketball fan.  We met at the Pan-Am Center an hour early.  I got there first.  Jacob arrived a bit after and hitched a ride across the parking lot on golf cart with a staff member he just met.  That should give you an idea of his charming personality.


The Barbara Hubbard Hospitality Suite
I didn’t even know this place was here.  It was added to the building well after it was built.  The suite is upstairs and overlooks the court.  Its window shades are usually drawn, so I’d never noticed it.  The walls of the room are covered in memorabilia from all the acts that had been there since the Pan-Am Center’s opening in 1968.  I should have wandered around and looked at them more.  I noticed a large plaque from a Reba McEntire concert and a poster from a production of Grease.  Jacob, who’d been there before, pointed out a mounted article, maybe from the 70’s, with Bill Cosby and “Mother Hubbard,” the lady who books the Pan-Am shows.  Jacob thought they should take it down because of his scandals.  I said, “I wonder how far he got with her.”

It was an intimate dining room and maybe about 20 people were inside.  I don’t know what you have to buy into to get in here.  There was a buffet serving fajitas.  Jacob said they were hot, but I must have missed the chili peppers, since I thought they were pretty good and I have little tolerance for spicy food.  They served beer and some other alcohol and water and some bad tea (which was what I had).  Some soft drinks would have been a good option.

Shortly after we got there, Athletic Director Mario Moccia and Football Coach Doug Martin came in.  I was sort of expecting Mario to come in and make a bowl game announcement at some point.  Seeing the coach was a bonus.  Certainly today, these guys are the heroes of Aggieland.  They immediately received a standing ovation. 

Mario addressed the group first.  He was wearing a t-shirt under his business jacket, promoting the Aggies’ bowl game.  “I’m going with a Don Johnson/Miami Vice look today.”  I knew he was scheduled to make a press announcement earlier in the afternoon, and indeed Mario confirmed that the Aggies had been invited to the Arizona Bowl at the end of the month.  By a strange twist, they’d be playing Utah State, the same team they’d played at their last bowl game in 1960. 

Mario also talked about the Aggies’ win last night was the lead story on ESPN college football and other national outlets.  It occurred to me just then that I should have watched the news and Stadium’s Rally show last night.  I did find Scott Van Pelt’s ESPN clip talking about the game later on Youtube.  He said that they were watching the end of the game intently to see if the Aggies could pull it off.  “Unless you were rooting for South Alabama or have no heart, how could you not be cheering for the Aggies?”  Scott’s congratulatory commentary was very heartfelt, especially given that they’d admittedly been ragging on the program for so long.  As little as I think of ESPN, Van Pelt said exactly the right things here and, I have to admit, this praise from this source really does validate the win for me. 

Assistant Basketball Coach David Anwar was introduced and gave a scouting report on today’s opponent, the Prairie View A&M Panthers.  Wow, talk about insider information for a game.  He emphasized that while they weren’t a well-known team, they were a good one.  They’d played a hard schedule to this point.  He pointed out a couple players that were their stars, who did play well during the game.  Coach Anwar even opened up the floor to questions.  I wasn’t sure I heard this right at the time, but someone asked for a comment on UNM losing to UTEP last night in Men’s Basketball.  (And they did shockingly lose.  More mocking laughter directed at traitorous ex-Aggie Coach Paul Weir.)

Coach Martin was asked twice to speak and finally relented.  He mentioned he got a lot of play call second-guessing from his assistant coach after the game, and then pointed at his wife, who was with him.  It’s good to see a couple share the same interests.  The Coach finished up his talk, just like you’d expect a good coach to, with an inspirational message.  “This university has been haunted by Old Man Can’t for too long.  We can’t win the games.  We can’t win the big games.  We can’t go to a bowl game.  Well let me tell you, we buried Old Man Can’t out on that field Saturday night.  And we did it with that shovel we won when we beat UTEP this year!”  Needless to say, another round of applause followed.

I had a chance to talk to Mario and could have asked if he’d noticed that the crowd for the Women’s game yesterday was half Lobo fans.  (I cannot get over that.)  But, he was on a high and had had a really busy two days.  It felt like an inappropriate moment.  Maybe I’ll run into him again in the near future.  Jacob and I left and ran into Chuck and his wife in the concourse.  Chuck’s the one who got me the tickets, so I got a chance to thank him again.       

 

I took a solo trip up front.  I was looking for cinnamon roasted almonds, which are my favorite Aggie concession item, but not sold at every sporting event.  I wanted to look for them at the football game, but was carrying too much to travel around.  The nut people had their table set up, but only had pecans.  They were good, but not what I wanted, and I ended up giving them to Jacob.  The grill was open, but I was full.  I do intend on trying their burger sometime.  Aggie sponsor, Sports Accessories had a table set up selling a pile of commemorative football shirts, probably just made after a long night’s work.  I said I was done buying Aggie shirts, except if the Aggies went to a bowl game, so I picked up one. 

I made it back to my seat just before the Anthem.  A local guy did a great version out on court with a color guard.  The Aggie team intro video was also really well done.  The regular PA was off today after a long day yesterday doing basketball and football.  The younger PA that I like too was in.  I think I can identify him as DJ Downs, a marketing guy at the University.  He did a good job here.  The crowd was okay for a Sunday afternoon at about 3,000.  The Cheerleaders and Sundancers were back out performing after a long day yesterday.  The Sundancers seemed to do most of the on-court performing for the game.    

                                         

First Half
Owing to my late arrival, I was unprepared for any note taking for this half and didn’t recover for 20 minutes.  I even forgot I had my radio with me.  I’d wanted to hear the pre-game show to hear Jack Nixon’s comments about the football win yesterday.  Our seats were at midcourt in the section overlooking the east tunnel.  They were good ones with a commanding view of the court.  Coach Martin and his assistant coach/wife were briefly sitting right below us.
 
A lot of my entertainment for the game was watching the two hyperactive coaches working on the sidelines.  You could hear Aggie Coach Chris Jans barking at the players and officials pretty easily anywhere in the arena.  Jans is so soft-spoken whenever I hear him interviewed on the radio, it’s quite a contrast.  There were other extra circular attractions.  The cheerleaders threw t-shirts into the crowd anytime the Aggies made a three.  There was also mass toss of football t-shirts that the crowd went crazy for.  Several pizzas were given away (and were handed to winning fans, not thrown.)  And there was a contest with two guys attached at the back by a cable trying to make shots at opposite ends of the court.  The biggest event for the game was the football team coming out onto court during a break.  The crowd loved seeing them and roared.  I think the guys there really enjoyed the adulation and they certainly earned it.

As for the actual game action in the first half, like I said, I was ill prepared and scrambling.  I ended up just jotting down a few random things.  My apologies.  The Aggies went up early.  The Panthers went to a full court press after going down 13-4 to start the game.  The officials had problems with the game clock which caused a couple of short delays.  It wasn’t an equipment issue this time at least.  The     Panther’s bench got a technical called on them.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what it was about.  (Should have turned on the radio.)  The Aggies picked up a bunch of fouls in the half.  The Panthers fouls didn’t really hurt them as the Aggies weren’t very good at shooting free throws.  Jacob, who’s a basketball coach, kept cringing at every miss.  The Panthers had the most embarrassing play of the half when they fired a cross-court pass that went straight into the crowd.

Local player, Joe Garza came in.  The crowd went into an uproar when Garza took a charge and ended up getting called for a foul.  From listening to other radio broadcasts, Jack Nixon, doesn’t seem to approve of the two local recruits, or at least doesn’t approve of the Las Cruces fans wanting locals on the team.  In Johnny McCants' case, I think he may be a future star in the making, so there shouldn’t be any bias against him.  The program probably could have recruited someone better than Garza, but his story of going from high school star to being on the Women’s practice squad to walking on to the Men’s team, earned him a profile in Sports Illustrated’s March Madness coverage last year.  That kind of good publicity for the University is priceless.   

The Aggies continued to lead, but their shooting went cold late, allowing the Panthers to catch up.  It was 32-28 Aggies at the half.  Seems like the scouting was correct, Prairie View was tough.

Halftime
Our halftime contest featured a guy playing for a car.  He had to make a layup, a free throw, a three-pointer, and a half court shot in 20 seconds, which didn’t happen.  A guy in the NBA might have trouble doing all that, especially having retrieve his own ball.  Next up was a troop of little girls from a local dance studio.  They did a good job and were cute.  The Sundancers came out to watch them from the sidelines.  The intermission finished with an extended fan Dance Cam.  The halftime stats had the Aggies shooting 52% from the field, with the Panthers shooting 40%.  The big difference for the Aggies was 9 assists to 0 for the Panthers.  The Aggies did a really good job dishing off to teammates to finish plays and finding the open man for a shot.
  
Second Half
I made a better attempt at noting the action for this half.  I think I like the Women’s format better with four quarters.  The action is a bit more intense and focused, though this format does make the game more of an endurance contest.  The Panthers certainly got a second wind from the rest and kept the score close.  Three minutes in, they’d closed the score to 35-33.  Still, it didn’t feel in doubt.  The Aggies started a run right after that.  With fifteen minutes left, Keyon Jones got a steal and a layup to make the score 42-33 Aggies. 

The Panthers took a timeout.  The contest on the court had a blindfolded guy crawling around on the court, trying to find a poster with the crowd directing him.  Something I took note of in this half was that the fans in the good seats are way more serious about the game than the rest of the crowd.  I was the only one there keeping a scorecard, but they were really paying attention and hanging on every play and calling out how they felt about those plays.  These fans have a real investment in the team, beyond just today’s ticket.

The Aggies started showing some good hustle.  Jermerrio Jones made a great out-of-bounds save with 14 minutes left.  Sidy N’Dir made a monster block on a shot, swatting the ball away.  Sidy has come back from an injury last season with a name pronunciation change.  Instead of “City Nadir,” it’s “City N-Dear.”  It doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, but is still fun to say.  12 minutes left and the Panthers went back to a full court press.  On their next possession, they missed an alley-oop jam.  Eli Chuha took off with the rebound for a layup. 

During a break, a Special Olympian volleyball player was honored on court.  A few members of the Aggie Volleyball team were with her.  I definitely saw Jordan George and Julianna Salanoa there.  I told Jacob about seeing Julianna palm a volleyball.  He was impressed.  In another break, a contestant had to putt from midcourt and try to hit a hole in a sign.   

10 minutes left in the game, and it was 49-40 Aggies.  The Panthers kept trying to take the ball inside during this half, but kept losing it when they drove the lane against the Aggies’ interior defense.  The Aggies busted out some of their best moves of the game.  Sidy got a steal and a slam to rev up the crowd.  Jemerrio took an inbound pass directly to the rim for a jam.  There was a great back door pass to a completely unguarded player right under the net for a layup.  (That one happened so fast, I didn’t the players’ names.)  Johnathon Wilkins had a great block on a fast break shot. 

With three minutes left and the Aggies comfortably up, some the crowd started deserting.  There was a promotion that if an opposing player missed two free throws in a row, everyone would get a free Chik-fil-a coupon.  In the last minute, a Panther missed his first free throw attempt and the crowd got all over him on the second shot, trying to get that free sandwich.  (He made it.)  I was surprised that Prairie View didn’t start fouling in the last couple of minutes, given that it was still close and the Aggies weren’t very good at free throws.  The last few minutes played out pretty quickly.  Our final: Aggies 69, Panthers 57Gary Blackson for PV A&M was the high scorer with 19 points.  Jermerrio Jones was our Aggie player of the game with 18 points.  AJ Harris also came up big with 17 points.  (Without the radio call, I don’t have any other stats to report.)

Right after the game, Jacob had to leave.  I think had night yard work to do.  (He’s a very hardworking man.)  I knew there was going to be a player autograph session after the game.  I kind of wanted to stay, but thought I should leave with Jacob.  Yes, I know.  By not getting their autographs, I’ve just ensured that one of these guys is going to be a future NBA star.  You’re welcome.  Though I was never there for a formal autograph session for baseball, I’m still regretting not getting a Daniel Johnson autograph a couple of years ago.  Maybe I’ll get another chance sometime to tell Joe Garza he’s my hero and call Johnny McCants, “Highlight Reel.” 

What-a-burger coupons were handed out at the door for the win.  I decided to go to Schlotzsky’s with a different coupon for takeout.  A couple of Aggie fans came in behind me, using a coupon on the back of their tickets.  These promotions are working out well for everyone.       

Well, that’s it.  It’s over.  I’ve been ruined.  This experience with the hospitality suite and these half court seats has spoiled any future experiences in the Pan-Am Center for me.  Actually, I lucked out in being at the Hub on such a momentous day.  I’m thinking that it’s not usually so noteworthy to be there for a pre-game meal.  Still, that was a very cool.   


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