Sports Journal January 31, 2019

1-31-19

Funny that I started this month off talking about not getting a Big Tex sandwich at Church’s for a month end meal.  This month end, I went to Church’s and still didn’t get my sandwich.  They got my order wrong and gave me their usual chicken sandwich, which sucks.  At least they didn’t charge me more for the wrong item. 

I’m only posting here because of the tyranny of the calendar.  If I’d thought it through, I’d likely have held back that last post until after tonight’s games.  More or less to pad this out, I’m posting a flyer I found at work for the Aggie Tip-Off Dinner.  I don’t know how one gets into that dinner.  I’m thinking its more than just buying season tickets.  My workplace must have bought a table there.

On the flyer, I noticed the coach’s wife, Sheri Jans, is prominently mentioned.  She ran a recent clinic on basketball for women, which sold out in attendance.  A couple people said on the Aggie Coach’s Show that Sheri was the best reason to bring Chris Jans here and was his much better half.

The other reason I’m padding this is because I was too busy to really watch or listen to both of tonight’s games.  Sorry.  I’m probably going to reevaluate my sports coverage after this season.  In any case, the Aggie Women played first on the road in Kansas City versus UMKC.  When the team arrived yesterday, they tweeted out snowflake emoji’s.  Nothing like stepping off a plane into a polar vortex.  Even the girls who grew up in cold weather were probably not used to temperatures that negative.

The WAC Digital Network was carrying the game, but unfortunately there wasn’t any sound for the first half.  Brooke Salas was also not scoring for the first half.  I think she had zero points after 20 minutes.  I had to look to make sure she was actually playing.  Perhaps she’d been flash frozen.  I wish I’d been able to watch more and that there’d been sound.  I’m thinking the Roos must have triple-teamed her whenever she had the ball.
   

That probably might have worked if they hadn’t been leaving Gia Pack and Monique Mills open.  Gia finished with 32 points!  Mo came up with 17.  It’s good to see the other Mills sister stepping up.  They probably were leaving her wide open.  Aaliyah Prince and Stabresa McDaniel both came up big with 12 points.  Brooke finished just shy of a double double with 8 points and 12 rebounds. 

The Aggies won a close one, 90-86.  The bad news was that Gia was injured on the last play on court.  She was trying to block a three, which wouldn’t have mattered at that point.  Gia fouled the Roo player, who took three foul shots after, and came up limping with a bad knee.  She couldn’t put any weight on it, so it didn’t look good.  The only other thing I noticed with the coverage was that they held a high school or middle school girls game during halftime.  They were pretty enthusiastic. 

The Aggie Men started their game here in Las Cruces shortly afterward.  Ivan Aurrecoechea was in street clothes on the bench.  They weren’t giving a time table for his return, but at least nothing was broken so he may be back before the end of the season.  The Aggies started off the game well and had the UMKC Roos nearly down by double digits right off the bat.  The Roos would make a comeback, but the Aggies were up by eight at the half. 

Somewhere during this I went across the street to get my disappointing sandwich.  When I got back, the Aggies had the game well in hand.  I found myself watching Dizzykitten chatting instead.  (It was interesting and she looked so pretty.)  I did eventually go back to the game.  A Roo player missed two free throws which activated the free Chik-fil-a sandwich promotion for the crowd.  This made me feel even worse about my own crummy chicken sandwich.  (It upset my stomach mildly too.  I was expecting that if I’d gotten the Big Tex that I’d wanted, but at least it would have tasted better.)

The Aggies won 70-54.  A lot of the bench saw action later in the game.  Terrell Brown led the team with 15 points.  Your stat of the match was 43-17, that was the Aggies’ rebounding advantage tonight. 

I enjoyed what I heard of Jack Nixon and Justin Hawkin’s commentary.  Early on, Jack questioned a foul, “Refs aren’t seeing things the same way I am.”  Later, with the game basically decided, Jack and Hawk were commenting on a player’s sharp-looking shoes.  Promoting the Saturday game, former coach Reggie Theus was announced to be coming back to town for a ceremony.  Jack said the women in town were getting their hair done for game, Reggie being well known as a “ladies man.”  Jack asked Hawk if his wife is getting her hair done.  Hawk: “I’m getting my hair done.”