1-5-19
I thought I’d get the weekend off from sports
writing. The UTEP Women’s Basketball game was preempted for the FCS Football Championship game on the
radio. Unexpectedly later in the
afternoon, another Women’s Basketball game came on Stadium. It was the New Mexico Lobos versus the Nevada Wolfpack. I’d seen the Lobos in person this season (12-15-18) and I’d also seen the Wolfpack on TV (11-25-18). This was their first meeting in Mountain West conference for the
year.
The Lobos were on a ten-game winning streak, mostly
winning by 20 or more each game. They
are number one in the nation in blocked shots and attendance. (I’m not surprised at all about leading in
attendance they way they travel.) Out on
court, size-wise, the Lobos seemed to have a definite advantage over the
Wolfpack.
However, Nevada does have an advantage in coaching. Coach
Amanda Levens, who I’d noticed last
time, is a real cutie. Certainly she
looks very serious and intense out there, but she is cute. She’s a highlight blonde and today Amanda was
in a pair of blue jeans and a light blouse.
(Here I am doing a coach’s wardrobe segment for another team.) There was another attractive referee on court
too with pretty long, dark hair.
First Quarter
The Wolfpack starters were introduced coming out through
a curtain. Kinda classy. Both teams came out playing nervous with
several turnovers. At 6-2 Lobos, nearly
five minutes in, Nevada scored their first points. The Wolfpack Cheerleaders were finally able to leave the stands and come back
down to the court. (Aggie Cheerleaders are there until the opposing team scores.
Everybody has different traditions.)
9-8 Nevada took the lead off of some continuing sloppy
play by the Lobos. You could hear their Coach Mike Bradbury screaming on court
over the announcer’s microphones. The
team kept dribbling off their feet for some reason on the way to ten turnovers
in the quarter. It was 11-9 Nevada after
ten minutes.
Second Quarter
Lobo #23 Jaedyn
de la Cerda hit three early. I
remembered her from the Aggie game.
She’s kinda cute and absolutely torched the Aggies. The game was getting rough with girls hitting
the floor. It was 17-17 after the Lobos
took an ill-advised shot. “Coach
Bradbury isn’t going to have a voice by the end of this,” said the play-by-play
guy listening to the coach’s reaction.
That got the team’s attention and they went on a 10-0
run. 24-19 Lobos on a steal and a
layup. One Lobo got hit in face under
the basket and went down. The coach went
over to check on her, but she stayed in.
30-22 NM at the half.
Third Quarter
Early, there was another Lobo steal and an attempted
layup. It was three-on-one and the one
defender had three fouls. The Lobos
passed the ball twice and ended up coming away with nothing. The only stat the Wolfpack were leading in
for the first half was rebounding, and they were doing it well in the second
half too. It was keeping them in it.
Nevada was also doing it down under the basket
offensively. A Wolfpack player under the
rim made a fake and got a Lobo player to jump on her back. The girl hung there for a moment before they
both collapsed. They both came up
smiling. A little later, it was about
the same play, but two Lobo defenders were standing over the Nevada player. She pump faked and hesitated twice, got the
basket, and the foul. The Lobos finished
with the lead, 48-44.
Fourth Quarter
The Wolfpack had gotten within two late in the third,
but the Lobos went on an 11-0 run. It
was 55-44 early and NM’s biggest lead. A
loose ball was caught by a fan by the side of the court. The announcer identified him, by name, as a
Nevada professor, who’s a big fan of the university’s basketball programs.
60-57 Lobos, Nevada’s Terae Briggs suddenly couldn’t miss and got the Wolfpack right back
in it. Timeout Lobos. More rough play, a Nevada girl went down hard
after making a block. After a review, a
Lobo player got an “Unsportsman-like conduct” foul. From what I saw, it looked like she kicked
the other girl on the way down. Needless
to say, the Lobo girl got booed every time she touched the ball thereafter.
64-62 Lobos, an NM player fouled out on the next
play. She was one of their main
defensive players. It was tied at 64
with about 90 seconds left. The Lobos
got a steal and layup again to take the lead.
Nevada had the ball with six seconds left, but missed a last second three
to win it. 66-64 Lobos win. Now it’s an
11-game winning streak. Hey, that was a
great game. I’m glad Stadium showed this
instead of what was scheduled and that I was able to watch.
1-10-19
Two Aggie
Basketball games were on tap tonight.
I had a bunch of work and some distractions later that kept me from
really watching and taking notes, so this is going to be a bit spotty. First up, the Aggie Women were in Phoenix to play GCU. They didn’t have a good
game there last year and got drummed.
(Checking back, apparently I didn’t cover that game.) I had the GCU video feed up while I was
working. They have two professional
announcers working for them. They were
good and fair in calling the game (unlike their student broadcasters).
I did find myself looking at the Lopes’ Coach Nicole Powell. I’d noticed her when she brought her team
here. She’s a very athletic and
attractive woman. I didn’t note Coach Atkinson’s wardrobe again. I’m failing in fashion reporting. Also, I’m still fascinated with the Mills sisters’ hair color choices. Dominique
was still red, but Monique seemed to be going with a golden hue.
And now, how to write a recap without any notes. Brooke
Salas had no field goals in the first quarter. She wasn’t cold; seemingly the whole GCU team
was keyed on collapsing on her whenever she had the ball. Still, the Aggies stayed close, trailing
12-16 after ten minutes. Brooke got her
first basket in the second. She’d
already accumulated nine rebounds to that point, so she was playing hard. The Aggies went down by as many as seven, but
got within one on an Aaliyah Prince
layup and free throw. The Aggies were
still down 24-28 at the half.
I missed the third quarter. Brooke was finally able to get going on
offense. The announcers were impressed
with her. In the fourth, the Aggies got
within two in final seconds. Brooke got
a steal, but then turned it right over.
The Aggie pressure defense got a turnover and time for a final
shot. Kalei Atkinson was fouled and missed both free throws (the second
may or may not have been on purpose). On
the last Aggie play, needing a three, the inbounds went off Brooke’s fingers
and out-of-bounds.
51-54
Lopes win. They led
all the way. The Aggies at least did
better than last year, when they only scored like 39 and lost by about 20. Brooke
Salas had 16 points and 16 rebounds.
Gia Pack was next with 10
points. Your stat of the match was zero,
the number Aggie three-pointers made.
The Men’s
Basketball game against GCU here
in Las Cruces started at about halftime of the Women’s game. I started off listening on the radio, as I
was away from my desk. Even on a rainy
night without any special promotion, there was nearly a full house at the Pan-Am Center for this conference
rivalry matchup. They were into it too. Watch out though, three bus loads of GCU fans
and students also came to game. They’d
be cheering too.
When I got back to my desk, I found the game on Twitch again and started watching near
the end of the half. There wasn’t a lot
of chat going on with the game and it was only GCU fans talking. The halftime score was 38-41 Lopes in a very
tight game. (Like I said, I was busy.)
By the time the Women’s game came to its disappointing
end, the Men’s second half started.
Here, however, was my distraction.
I was watching DizzyKitten, also on Twitch, interacting with her chatroom.
She’d made an offhanded comment that she had a printer in the bathroom
and Chat started teasing her. It was her
mom’s master bathroom and printer.
Finally, Dizzy left her room for a moment to ask, “Mom, Chat wants to
know why there’s a printer in the bathroom.”
Also, there was a coffee maker and gun supplies in the bathroom. It’s a large bathroom. Obviously, I couldn’t tune away from this
exchange.
On some level, I missed most of a super-intense second
half. I definitely missed a couple of
great Johnny McCants’ jams. On the other, the score remained close and
nothing really changed. The Aggies may
have gotten the biggest lead of the game, up five, with under two minutes. The Lopes came right back with a three.
With under 30 seconds left, disaster struck. Up by three, all the Aggies had to do was
dribble out as much as possible.
Excellent ball-handler, AJ Harris,
suddenly got his pocket picked for a layup.
Moments later, AJ turned it over again on the inbounds for another easy
layup for GCU. With 13 seconds left, the
Aggies were suddenly losing by one.
Terrell
Brown was fouled shooting when the Aggies got the ball
back. He’s the team’s best free throw
shooter at 80%. He missed both. On the rebound, the Aggies intentionally
fouled immediately with only a couple of seconds left on the clock. The GCU player missed the front end of the
one-and-one.
And then a legend was made. Local boy Johnny McCants got the rebound and
dribbled to halfcourt. Johnny is not
known for his long distance shooting, in fact people were questioning why he
was in this late in the game, since he doesn’t even shoot free throws
well. Well behind the halfcourt line, he
calmly heaved the ball as only tenths of a second remained. The ball went right through the net, barely
touching the rim.
76-75
Aggies win! Johnny was
instantly mobbed and dogpiled on court by the team. My dad reported that Jack Nixon on the radio was out of breath for the rest of the
broadcast. Adam Young, doing the video, was in a bit of shock. He’d seen endings like this on replay, but
never live, much less calling the game.
As the team partied in the student section, Coach Chris Jans admitted in the
postgame interview he was already walking over to congratulate GCU Coach Dan Majerle before Johnny shot
the ball. He’d said he was actually not
mad about the impending loss, since the team had played hard and well. In any case, Coach Jans was euphoric, along
with the rest of the Aggie fans. Did we
just steal one? Maybe.
The star of the game was Ivan Aurrecoechea with 20
points and 11 rebounds, a tremendous comeback from being blanked against CBU last week (1-3-19). Terrell
Brown had 15, Johnny McCants had
17 (a definite breakout game for him offensively), and Keyon Jones had 12. It’s
still hard to get a read on this team. Hopefully,
this last second win turns the corner for them on losing close games. We’ll see who steps up for the next game on
Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment