12-22-18
The Aggie Men’s
Basketball team was in Las Vegas to take on the Drake Bulldogs for a tournament on Saturday. They were playing at the Orleans Arena, which is the home of the WAC Championship tournament.
The Aggies had the most fans there for their team, as they often do for
the WAC tournament. Jack Nixon interviewed AD Mario
Moccia before the game. Mario had
been listening to the girls playing in Miami earlier in the week. He described that first game (12-20-18) as a “gut-punch.” For the second game (12-21-18), he was amazed by Brooke
Salas’ performance and called her afterward.
First Half
The Aggies went down 0-7 before they took their first
shot. AJ Harris would get a three to pull the team to within 13-16. But, the Aggies were committing too many
fouls, giving up too many turnovers, and not shooting well in general. The team was particularly frustrated trying
to score inside. They were
out-rebounding Drake 19-6, so they were hustling. It was 25-35 Drake at the half.
During halftime, Jack interviewed a couple of NM State
grads who were working in Vegas. One of
them was a bookie. He’d accurately
predicated nation-wide legalized spread-betting last year. So far, one Indian casino in New Mexico was
doing it. They lost big on their opening
weekend though, because of a bunch of upsets.
He questioned them not taking bets on New Mexico teams. He said that was actually the only way to
prove the integrity of the betting. Vegas
does it with their local teams. It was a
short, but interesting discussion.
Second Half
“The Aggies are playing their worst game of the year,
frankly,” said Jack. I had just about
zoned-out of listening to the game. The
Aggies went down by 15. With about eight
minutes left, I finally started paying attention as they started making a
comeback and got to 43-48 Drake.
Terrell
Brown started taking over with about three minutes left, as
he dropped a three to make it, 50-54.
Drake answered with an immediate three, 50-57. Brown sank another three, 53-57, then a steal
by AJ and a Johnny McCants’ layup, 55-57. The mostly Aggie crowd was cheering. Drake answered with a dunk, 55-59. Brown came right back with a steal and his
own dunk, 58-59. Does this sound
exciting yet?
Drake put in three, 58-62. AJ got a layup, 60-62, with under a minute
left. Drake came back with a jumper,
60-64. Brown put in another three, 63-64,
with 23 seconds left. He hadn’t made one
in three games before this. The Aggies
trapped twice and forced timeouts. 14
seconds left, the Aggies intentionally fouled, but Drake failed to score on a
free throw. With seconds left, Brown was
turned away at the rim. The Aggies fouled
trying to get the ball. Drake sank both
shots, 63-66, which was the
final. The last Aggie pass was stolen to
end the game.
Admittedly, the Aggies didn’t deserve to win this one,
but this was one too many heartbreaks in one week for me. I’d almost wished for a straight
blowout. The Aggies shot just 30%, but
were 42 to 23 in rebounds. They had 15
turnovers, but only three in second half. Drake also had 15 turnovers. Terrell
Brown finished with 17 points. Ivan Aurrecoechea had 10 rebounds. He was frustrated by Drake’s interior defense
for the whole game. Coach Jans wanted to be mad in the postgame, but his team had
played too hard at the end for him not to feel kind of proud. He’d be staying to watch next game to see which
opponent they’d be facing tomorrow.
12-23-18
The consolation game for Aggie Men’s basketball was scheduled to start late in Las Vegas,
8:00pm MST. I puzzled over this. When I tuned in, the championship game was still
going between Drake and San Diego. Thinking about it, I guess it’s more
advantageous to the winners to get to go first and head home for Christmas Eve
earlier.
Anyway, the game went into overtime. Jack Nixon,
having some familiarity with the players went ahead and started calling the
game. What a pro! He referred to it as, “Christmas bonus
coverage.” At the end of OT, a free throw
tied it, but the player missed the next shot and sent it to double OT. Jack
chuckled at this unforeseen circumstance.
110-103 Drake was the final, as
they took tourney championship. Three
players fouled out before the end.
The Aggies would be playing the Washington State Cougars for the second time this season (12-1-18). It was a bit of a quirk
in scheduling. Before AD Mario Moccia came on, he saved Jack
from being hit with a ball. When asked
if Mario had shopped for his wife, he said, “That’s what December twenty-fourth
is for.”
First Half
The crowd for the game given the late start, that it
wasn’t for the championship, and neither team was local was described as
“light.” Jack counted it at 50 Aggie fans,
30 WS fans, and 200 curious onlookers. I
wonder how many Aggie fans would be staying up late to listen to all of the
game in Las Cruces?
Unlike the game yesterday, the Aggies came out shooting
well. Jojo Zamora had a pair of early three’s. It was 14-6 Aggies when WS took a
timeout. Zamora hit a couple more
three’s to drive up the score to 30-17.
For his twenty-first point of the half, he put in another three. Jack said Jojo was shooting it like he was
“Allergic to leather.” The Aggies got a
layup at the buzzer for a 41-31 halftime lead.
Jack talked to Nicole
Sacks, director of marketing, during the break. She gave an update on the Toys for Tots drive. They said about 4,000 kids would be taken
care of for Christmas.
Second Half
WS made a comeback early, prompting a timeout at 47-43
Aggies. About halfway through, the
Cougars tied it at 54 and then went ahead.
From there, the lead went back-and-forth between the teams. WS finally went up by four, 61-65, with five
minutes left.
Under two minutes left, Zamora got a steal and an assist
to Eli Chuha, who laid it in. CJ Bobbit
came up with a big block the next time down. Terrell
Brown made a bank shot to put the Aggies back up, 70-67, with under a minute
left. WS took a one-point lead on a
layup, 70-69. Eli answered with a layup,
72-69. Then a big three for the Cougars,
and we were tied at 72. 14 seconds left,
somehow WS left Zamora alone behind the arc, where he buried another
three. With one second left, Bobbitt got
a steal to end it. 75-72 Aggies!
What a game!
Let’s hear it for Jojo Zamora:
28 points and only missed two shots.
This team is still hard to figure out, since they’ve had so many
different players stepping up in different games. The key for this team would seem to be
finding out who has the hot hand that night and keep feeding them the ball.
12-28-18
I had some bad news over Christmas. One, Schlotzsky's
closed down. The employees there had
been told it was going to be remodeled early next year. That was such a great place to eat before and
after games. I think losing the ice
cream may have killed the place, but that may have been an effect, rather than
the cause of its closing. With the loss
of the Dairy Queen there years ago,
now there’s just McDonalds close by. Err.
Two, after looking at the just released Softball schedule more carefully, I
noticed that the WAC Softball tourney
was going to be held in Phoenix this year.
Since the Aggies had won last season, I was looking forward to seeing
the tournament here again (or alternatively, dreading it because of the conditions
there). The move will help GCU and maybe some other schools that
are closer to Arizona, but not me or the team (certainly it’s not going to be
cooler and more pleasant there than here).
Bah.
For tonight, the Aggie
Women’s Basketball team was in California to play the UC-Riverside Highlanders.
They’d be playing in the SRC,
the Student Rec Center, where intramural games are played by the students. Brooke
Salas was from nearby Palcentia. She
had about 20 friends and family there, so the Aggies got a good round of
applause during the intros.
I stuck with Adam
Young and the Aggie radio called, though I pulled up a video feed by UCR. It was being broadcast there on municipal
TV. I couldn’t bring up any live stats
for the game. I didn’t realize at the
time that that meant Adam didn’t have access to the stats either. His producer next to him was keeping score by
hand.
The Highlanders are a nice-looking team, but that didn’t
help them in the first quarter. Brooke came
out scoring early for the Aggies’ first five points. Others on the team got involved, and the
Aggies went on a run to make it 20-12 late.
Brooke hit a three for her twelfth point. Aaliyah
Prince got a block and a layup at the buzzer for 25-14 Aggie lead.
Starting in the second quarter, UCR started making a
comeback. Thanks to some
“cherry-picking” (staying back on a defensive rebound), the Highlanders got a
couple of layups in a row to make it 27-19.
Brooke picked up a couple fouls of early on and had to come out along
with Adenike Aderinto. The Aggies floundered and UCR got ahead 36-39
at the half.
Brooke was still firing when she came out for the third
quarter, but had to play careful on defense.
42-50 and still trailing, Coach
Atkinson got a technical for arguing a non-call on Brooke getting hit in
the lane. “You guys suck!” That came over Adam’s microphone. I think that was someone in the crowd. I hope it wasn’t a coach. UCR converted on both free throws. Tayelin
Grays scored five points off bench for the Aggies to close it up to 47-52. Brooke picked up her third foul on a charge
and came out again with under two minutes.
It was 48-54 UCR after three quarters.
The Aggies started chipping into the lead in the fourth
quarter with their zone defense working well.
Monique Mills hit a three
with seven minutes left, 55-56. Brooke made
a free throw to tie at 56, however she was shooting 50% on free throws
tonight. Brooke then came up with a steal
and a layup for a 58-56 Aggie lead. She
got another steal at halfcourt and another layup, 62-58.
Unfortunately, UCR hit a three and another jumper to
retake the lead, 61-62. Brooke was hit
on nose by an elbow on a box out. While
the refs reviewed the video to see if it was a flagrant foul, that cute little blonde
trainer went over to Brooke to help her stop the bleeding. The foul wasn’t called flagrant. With under three minutes, Brooke made a nice
pass inside to Nike for a layup, 64-63 Aggies.
UCR retook the lead 64-65 late. Gia was blocked on a shot. Brooke got hammered in lane on a triple team. Nike got fouled and missed both free
throws. With under 30 seconds, the
Aggies missed a shot and tried to foul.
It ended up being a jump ball to Aggies with five seconds left. They lost the ball. There was some more referee comedy that was
too hard to keep up with, but time eventually expired. UCR
won 64-65. Unbelievably, nobody
scored at the end for over a minute.
There were some really questionable calls and non-calls,
but you can’t complain too much about the officiating; about half the time it
was working for the Aggies. Coach
Atkinson seemed stunned again after another one-point loss. This time, they lost an 11-point lead in ten
minutes and never really recovered. The
coach pinned it on letting up on defense.
She didn’t apologize for that technical foul. Those two points did actually matter. Adam started losing his voice during the
postgame. I hope he takes care of that.
Brooke
Salas had another stellar game with 22 points, six rebounds,
and seven steals. Her getting into foul trouble and having trouble with foul
shots really shouldn’t be that big a deal, except for at the moment, she’s
nearly the whole team. The other girls
have got to step up. The team is still
missing a point guard because of injuries.
Gia Pack is filling in, which
I think is hurting her offense. Maybe
Prince could do it? She looks like a
point guard. Have to teach her how to
pass first.
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