Sports Journal February 7-17, 2019

2-7-19

So Aggie Women’s Basketball had a great win earlier in the evening, which I attended.  The Aggie Men’s Basketball team had just started playing the CSU-Bakersfield Roadrunners on the radio after I got home.  I was planning on noting the score and maybe a couple of details to add to the end of my Women’s coverage, but events got way interesting than that.

As I tuned in, Eli Chuha had just banked in a shot to make it 8-4 Aggies.  “The bank of Redlands is open,” proclaimed Jack Nixon, working Chuha’s hometown into the call.  Ivan Aurrecoechea was there, but was not suited out to play.  I’m using cut-and-paste on that name every time.  Jack has to pronounce it all the way.  He might be slightly glad when Ivan’s out.  With eight minutes left in the half the Aggies were up 20-6!  Holy cow!  They were doing it with some high-pressure defense and rebounding.

During a timeout, the actual Roadrunner team, who’d been delayed in traffic, showed up.  They subbed out the JV team and took over.  Suddenly, it was 26-20 Aggies at the half.  That’s a 14-point lead reduced to six over just a few minutes of game time. 

During halftime, the Aggies loaded up on some bad concessions.  They each had a large serving of garlic fries and chili washed down with a Mr. Pibb in a big souvenir cup.  I’m not going to say that they were intentionally poisoned, but the NCAA should be looking into this.  This really showed up in the second half as the Aggies puked all over themselves.  They coughed that slim lead right up.

The Roadrunners took the lead and the Aggies were down five on the backend of the second half.  It got worse.  They were down by 10 with two minutes left.  I was mentally deciding not to listen to the postgame with Coach Jans because I didn’t want my ears getting blistered like the blistering the team was about get. 

Perhaps that thought motivated the team as well.  The Aggies went to a lockdown defense, as the Roadrunners suddenly started breaking down.  Two of their players fouled out.  Their lead was down to five with under a minute.  Terrell Brown got a steal and a layup to tie it at 62.  The Roadrunners missed their last shot and we went to a most unexpected overtime.

The Roadrunners were up by two with 9 seconds left.  Trevelin Queen got the ball and hit a three-pointer at the buzzer.  The refs had to confirm the shot, but Jack was pretty sure it counted without much consternation.  Aggies win 71-70!  Queen led the team with 13 points tonight.  With a GCU loss earlier, the Aggies were alone in first place.

“I think my stomach is somewhere in Fresno.”  Jack Nixon had run the gauntlet of emotions tonight, but he was a happy Jack at the end.  Coach Jans seemed a bit shocked during the postgame as well.  This team is wearing him out with all of these games going down to the last moment.  These Aggies are learning well how to win close games.  “You can’t teach experience,” said the coach afterward.  What a win! 

2-14-19

I’m not sure what I was thinking.  Or rather, apparently, I wasn’t thinking.  For the life of me, I don’t know why the Aggie Women’s Basketball team was playing Utah Valley at 11:00am this morning (or worse, 10:00am in Utah).  More quixotic than that though, I thought that the game was on local radio.  Given that Adam Young was set to call the Aggie Baseball home opener on Friday, who did I think would be calling this basketball game?

So, all I got was a final score and some stats later in the afternoon.  It 72-63 win for the Aggies.  Brooke Salas sat out most of with the first half with foul trouble, but came back with a vengeance with 13 points in the third quarter.  The Aggies had a big lead going into the fourth thanks to that outburst, but the Wolverines made a run late to make it close.  Brooke finished with a double-double, 21 points and 12 rebounds.  Gia Pack was the high-scorer for the game with 23.  Adenike Aderinto came on with 12 points.  

 

Tonight’s Men’s Basketball game here in Las Cruces was definitely on the radio.  I just kind of forgot about it.  I was busy at work and then I got distracted (more later).  I did remember it about halfway through the second half.  It was a two-point lead at halftime, but the Aggies had it pretty well in the hand after that.  The Aggies won 84-77.  Five Aggies finished in double figures.  Eli Chuha led with 21 points.  The overall team stats were close, but mostly because Wolverines came on late.  In the postgame, Justin Hawkins compared Coach Jans to Coach Rick Majerus.  Jans thanked him and immediately told him not to do that again.

The distraction was mostly in the form of Twitch, as usual.  Pokimane was doing a Valentine’s Day special playing Apex (not terribly romantic).  Then she did an “Ask Dr. Poki” segment, where she took calls from the lovelorn (frankly, it was disturbing at times).  Actually, it was entertaining and Poki is rather appealing (even though she’s probably pretty fake).  She had over 10,000 viewers.  That’s a lot of lonely hearts. 

Meanwhile, Starcraft player, Livibee, was on the Twitch front page and had 3,000 viewers, which was huge for her.  She was amazingly pretty and charming tonight, and was giving away skins in between her games.  Those games didn’t go well for her.  She lost three very intense matches when I was watching.  Livi said she was nervous about playing in front of so many people.  Still, the smile never left her face. 

Elsewhere, on Youtube, Lord Doomcock was also doing a Valentine’s special.  He was ranting for hours about science fiction and pop culture, decrying the outrages thereof.  There were more lost souls, including myself, watching as well.  Its good there’s something out there for us. 

2-16-19

After a cold afternoon at the Softball Complex, the Aggie Men’s Basketball team played the Seattle U Redhawks in the evening.  I wanted to go, but not by myself, definitely not for a Pack-the-Pan-Am game with 11,000 people in attendance.  The last time I did it, I just didn’t enjoy it.  Since Ron couldn’t go, the free tickets from work had to go back. 

I was perfectly comfortable listening to the game at home over the radio.  Sort of.  I was typing out a recap of today’s softball game while the game was on.  The Aggies were playing in an uninspired fashion or alternately, had stage fright playing in front of a big home crowd.  Between these two things, I wasn’t listening much.  By halftime at least, they’d closed to within 7, with the Redhawks up 22-29.

At the start of the second half, the Aggies even went down even further.  I mentally tuned out.  As it turned out, the team only needed one thing to get them going, a Johnny McCants jam!  This got the large crowd into it finally and the Aggies rallied.  They were down by nine, but the Aggies got it to within 1 on a Terrell Brown three with eight minutes left.

The Aggies tied it at 47 with six minutes left, and then Clayton Henry gave them a 50-49 lead with five minutes left on a three.  The Redhawks started losing players to fouls.  They lost their first shortly after losing the lead.  With about a minute-and-a-half left, the Aggies were up 56-51 and a second Redhawk fouled out.  Their third player fouled out with the Aggies up 3.  Eli Chuha made it a 4-point lead after making a free throw with 24 seconds left.  Henry was fouled and iced it with a pair of free throws

Aggies win 59-53.  “Ugly as a bowling shoe,” said Jack Nixon.  It looks good in the win column at least.  Trevelin Queen led the team with 13 points.  The team was 12 of 14 for free throws in the second half.  That was pretty clutch.  Meanwhile in Seattle earlier, the Aggie Women won 83-72.  The recap said they trailed for three quarters, but came on big in the fourth to win it.  Brooke Salas led with 27 points and 10 rebounds.  Gia Pack had 25.  The team shooting was 49% from the field.

2-17-19

After an exciting, but cold afternoon with Aggie Softball, it was race time with the Daytona 500.  But first, it was time for some lunch.  Ron and I were still together after the game.  We brought back some Raising Canes to my apartment to watch the race.  Ron was slightly amazed.  He told me that he doesn’t watch TV anymore, just shows and movies online.  I had to explain “Stage Racing,” as we starting watching just before Stage 2 ended.  (There is no explanation, not really.)  Neither of us were really familiar with most of the new drivers. 

So we got in about half the race.  I left briefly to go get froyo at Orange Leaf next door, because I have to have dessert with every meal.  After a couple of minor wrecks, we had “The Big One” with 9 laps left.  I was hooting and hollering like a redneck at the spectacle as the entire top lane was taken out with 19 cars damaged.  This wasn’t the last wreck and the race went into overtime.  Denny Hamlin, one of three cars left undamaged during the race, won.  Owner Joe Gibbs was emotional afterward as the race had been dedicated to his recently deceased son. 

Given my commitment to Aggie Sports and the general shunting of the NASCAR coverage to cable networks, I don’t know how many more races I’ll be watching.  Though the late red flags and an anti-climatic ending drained out a lot of excitement, I felt like I got what I came for.  They’re going to be using a new car package next week.  I’ll be curious to see it when I can.