NM State Basketball December 6-14, 2017

NM State Men’s Basketball

12-6-17

The Aggie Men played the San Diego Toreros.  I hadn’t heard of them either, but they apparently came well-regarded.  The first half was pretty low scoring with lots of defense.  Johnny McCants added a couple of more highlights to his reel.  Overall, the Aggies had a good interior defense and passing assists.  It was 29-29 at the half.  In the second, the Toreros came out hot, scoring on 8 of 9 shots for an 8-point lead.  The Aggie defense came on with four minutes left.  It was a one point difference with 19 seconds left.  The Aggies fouled and went down by 3.  The Aggies then missed a couple of free throws on their end, which they needed, and lost 65-60.  Maybe Brooke Salas or Tamera William could come to practice and teach these guys how to shoot free throws.  This was the first time their poor free throw shooting came back to hurt them.  More on this game in a minute.

NM State Men’s Basketball

12-9-17

Here was the guys’ big rematch versus the Lobos in Albuquerque.  The Aggies’ big win last month (11-17-17) had UNM fans looking for revenge.  Voice of the Aggies, Jack Nixon talked to Athletic Director Mario Moccia before the game.  Mario mentioned saying, “Hi,” to “Snake.”  This guy is apparently an obnoxious fixture at Lobo games, like the Old Man here.   Jack grudgingly acknowledged him.  It was a tight game.  The Aggies took a small lead into the half, but went down by 9 in the second with 10 minutes left.  Zack Lofton led a furious Aggie comeback.  (He’d finish with 22 points.)  The Aggies took a slim lead with one minute left.  The Lobos missed a last second three to tie it, giving the Aggies a hard 65-62 win.   Johnny McCants finished 8 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks, perhaps his best game.  Jack and Coach Jans were impressed with him.

NM State Basketball

12-10-17

Mario Moccia issued an angry tweet after the Men’s Basketball loss on Wednesday.  He pointed out that the team had trouble practicing with a concert being set up.  Right after that, the Men’s and Women’s teams had to practice at a high school as the Pan-Am and the practice court were being used for graduation.  The paper printed a long article about it.  Mario felt this was one of the reasons why they lost Paul Weir as a coach: a lack of dedicated facilities for the teams that sometimes conflicted with other entertainment events.  We’ll see where this goes. 

The paper had another recent article praising NMSU athletics, especially compared to UTEP and UNM.  Those programs have twice the budget and much larger populations in their communities, but the Aggies have outplayed them this year.  All of these athletics departments have had to deal with some big coaching turnover, but the Aggies have weathered it.  Not to mention, UNM’s program has also been embroiled in some scandal.  A little pat on the back is actually warranted. 

Meanwhile, I also found out this week that Jacob, who I went to a Men’s game with a couple of weeks ago (12-3-17), had coached Joe Garza and Johnny McCants in youth league basketball.  Now I’m really disappointed we didn’t wait around for autographs. 

NM State Men’s Basketball

12-12-17

The Men were playing the Eastern NM Greyhounds on Tuesday.  It was Star Wars night since the new movie is coming out this week.  Characters were out on court for introductions.  Football player Ron LaForce was one of the players honored tonight.  “May the LaForce be with you,” quipped Jack Nixon.  As for the game, the Aggies were resting three injured starters.  It was close halfway through the first half, but the Aggies built up a 10-point lead with 5 minutes left.  It was 39-27 Aggies at half.  There was a light saber battle with Darth Vader for halftime.  I would have liked to have seen that.  One of my co-workers, who’s a big fan and going to the first showing of the Last Jedi, should have gone.  In the second half, the domination continued.  84-62 Aggies final.  Jemerrio Jones finished with a rare Aggie triple double.

NM State Women’s Basketball

12-14-17

Today’s matinee featured the Aggie Women versus Arizona Wildcats.  Adam Young impressed with the arena in Tucson and with the large crowd of kids in attendance, numbered at over 7,500.  He was definitely enthusiastic about the game.  I think he was enjoying the large crowd and the possibility of a win over a PAC-12 school.  Arizona was on a six-game losing streak with a worse record than the Aggies, who coming off a big win over UTEP.  The Wildcats also had a “short” bench with only 10 players. 

I had to go to work early today, so I wasn’t able to just sit and listen as I was getting ready for work.  For this game, I figured the main thing the Aggies needed not to do was go down big early.  That is exactly what happened.  The kids got into it and were loud enough at times that I could barely hear Adam calling the game.  It started bad to begin with as Brooke Salas got called for two travelling calls on consecutive possessions.  When I got out of the shower, they were down by 12.  Brooke got over her shaky start with 10 points and was the only reason the Aggies weren’t getting blanked.  “Where would the Aggies be without Brooke,” exclaimed an amazed Adam Young. 

In the second quarter, Monique Mills hit a three with about 4 minutes left.  It was the first field goal for the Aggies by anyone not named Brooke.    On the other side, JaLea Bennett was pouring it in with 17 points.  I didn’t find out until later that Gia Pack had gotten into early foul trouble was sitting out the first half.  This might be one case where I’d say, the coach might have been better off letting her play.  I’d take my chances with Gia fouling out in the third quarter with the game close than let it get out of hand this early.  It was 43-23 Wildcats at the half when I went to work.

When I got there, I was actually sitting in a meeting with an earplug in listening to the rest of the game.  Things didn’t go any better in the second half as the game got further away from the Aggies.  Adam even seemed to be getting worn out by the crowd, probably unable to hear himself.  In the fourth, Gia hit a three for her first field goal of the game.  JaLea Bennett was out for most of the half, but because of the short bench, she had to come back in.  Both teams emptied their benches and everyone ended up playing.  Adam mentioned that freshman Pam Wilmore had be a high school teammate of one of the Wildcats.  Aissatou Fall came in and converted on a free throw.  Sara Lopez wasn’t on the Aggie roster today.  I don’t know where she is.

The final was 83-44 Wildcats.  Brooke Salas finished with 20 points.  I think she shot about 50%.  JaLea Bennett finished with 26.  Afterward, Coach Atkinson sounded more disappointed than angry.  She said they weren’t taking care of the ball.  The Aggies did have a lot of turnovers, along with being -13 in rebounds and the short Wildcat bench had 27 more points.  Not to make excuses, but I think I heard Adam say that they took a bus there.  That’s not a short trip and that might have made the team a bit flat on arrival.  Also, I hesitate to say that a bunch of kids might have intimidated the team, but this was the largest crowd they’ve played in front of this year and they were loud.  Let’s forget this game happened.  I guess one good thing is that Brooke has definitely got her shooting touch going.       

I'm off next week and the Aggie teams are out of town.