I’d gone to last year’s Scrimmage (10-12-21).
It was fun. This time there was
no admission fee. (Last year, it was $5
for charity.) They were also advertising
post-game autographs. Ron wanted to go
this time. Dad was interested, but he'd
taken a day trip and wasn't able to get back in time. For my part, I went to a funeral service in
the afternoon (my third of the year so far), but was ready to go.
I'd heard an interview with the new Basketball coach, Greg Heiar, a couple of weeks ago. He outright apologized for the pre-conference
home schedule. He could only get a
couple of in-state DII teams. Nobody
else would come here to play, even when offered money. Heiar blamed Coach Jans for the job he'd done in building up the program.
In the interview, he gave his basketball philosophy as
emphasizing defense and rebounding. But
also, all the players were being trained as point and shooting guards, so they
could handle the ball and shoot it. Hmm.
. . So in other words, he wants perfect
players. Good luck with that. The Aggies were picked second in conference in
the preseason poll.
Ron had expressed interest in Burger King last week. I got a good coupon in the mail, so for the first time in years, I went to a Burger King. It was okay. Their steak-style fries were impressive. At the Pan-Am Center, I picked up a program and nearly grabbed an autograph card. A girl came by and grabbed the whole stack front of me. I think they were set out up front in error. There wasn't a schedule poster out yet for the team.
Some terrifyingly bad rap music was playing on court. I wanted to plug my ears. Outside, we'd seen a family come in carrying
oversized Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls.
Ron said they'd probably get their own seats. Indeed, I could see them across the
court. Also on that side, new Women's Basketball coach, Jody Adams, sat at courtside.
As had been promised beforehand, the roster had almost
completely turned over. I only
recognized Chi Chi Avery and Mike Peake. I'd also heard of Deuce Benjamin. He's a local
player that had made the team. There
were two new players that the fans were high on that were still awaiting NCAA eligibility. Xavier
Pinson and Kim Aiken Jr. would
still be playing tonight at least.
One returner on staff is Dominique Taylor, who me and Ron had met a couple of years ago in
the Barbara Hubbard Room. He's a good guy and now he's the Associate
Head Coach. Congratulations. Also on staff is Aggie hero, Johnny McCants. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one in the
crowd who wanted his autograph. I didn't
see Joe Garza at the game. He's a former player, turned color
commentator for the Aggie TV broadcast.
My co-worker, Taylor hates him because they went to high school together
and Garza dated Taylor's high school sweetheart. How's that for some gossip?
The guys were warming up on court and finished with a
little dunking contest. Several guys
bricked it, but Doctor Bradley
slammed an impressive one. (I think his
parents must have had other ambitions for him.)
The team split up into Crimson and White uniforms. The White team huddled up with their
coaches. The Crimson kept warming
up.
A good crowd showed up.
There were lots of families with kids.
Before play, the staff was introduced on court. McCants got a big ovation. The players were then introduced. Deuce probably got the biggest hand. Dominique was coaching the Crimson team. Assistant
Coach Chad Myers was coaching the other team. Coach Heiar sat across the court to
watch. PA Ed announced that there'd be
three 10-minute periods.
First
Period
The first score was an Alley Oop by Deshawndre Washington to Doc for the Crimson. Next I have in my notes, #10 hit a 3 for
Crimson. There isn’t a “#10” on the
program. Actually, a couple of players
had on different jersey numbers than what was listed. I caught those. I think I meant #0 Anthony Roy. Maybe.
Dominique was waving his arms and yelling on the sidelines
after a missed running pass. He’s
already looking like a head coach.
Things were looking rough around the edges. Peake missed two shots. Kyle
Feit made a 3 for the Crimson. He
then made a steal, shot a 3 that missed, got the rebound, and missed the
layup. After a timeout, DaJuan “Quaye” Gordon hit a 3 for the
White. (I don’t name these guys,
folks.) He also wore mismatched shoes on
court and somehow made it look good. Washington
went tall and got a tip in for a basket.
It was 12-11 Crimson at the next timeout.
There was a T-shirt toss by the Cheerleaders in the break
that got the crowd on their feet. This is
where I figured out that there were a bunch of kids there. Both teams were looking kind of sloppy and missing
a lot. Aiken came from the top of the
key, he made a spin move and dunked it.
That looked good. Feit hit
another 3. It was 24-17 Crimson at the buzzer.
Second
Period
Ron said someone got hurt during the first period with
what looked like a groin pull. I didn’t
see it. He said the player didn’t come
back in. Ron usually notices things better
than I do. Hopefully, the player wasn’t
hurt bad.
Coach Heiar went over to both teams’ huddles and chewed
them out. A couple of guys changed
jerseys and switched sides. There was a
hat toss into the crowd. It had a New
Mexico Zia under the bill and was announced as a popular giveaway. Ron had seen the hat before and really liked
it. I wonder why they don’t sell some of
these giveaway hats.
DaJuan splashed a 3 to start the Second for the White. Roy answered with a 3 for the Crimson. Xavier got a layup for the Crimson on a great
pass inside. Issa Muhammed was the receiver on an Alley Oop for the White. Doc put down a two-hand jam. Xavier hit a 3 and got a layup. Feit hit a 3 with a hand in his face. Nice talk by the Coach. He got boys firing.
38-32 Crimson at the first timeout. El Paso sports reporter, Colin Deaver, was here. He’d
shot some footage on the court. He came
up near where we were to just watch the rest of the Scrimmage. Flex Cam went around the crowd. They found one super-buff guy who I hope was
on the Football team. The Women’s Basketball team was here and
flexed while giggling.
Xavier and Feit dropped in 3’s. Deuce was in and hit a deep 3, which the
crowd enjoyed. Peake finally got one to
drop with a 3. Issa went up for putback
for the White. At 6’9” 240 lbs., he’s
the second-biggest player on the team and he looks big. Doc was called for a backcourt by the
sideline. The crowd there booed,
including Coach Adams. This got the
whole crowd into it. PA Ed came on, “Don’t
boo, folks. It’s just an
exhibition. We’re all just getting warmed
up for the season.” Ron said later, “The
crowd was just warming up for the season, too.”
Peake wasn’t having a great rehearsal. He got called for a foul, then got a steal,
but missed the jam. Dominique was
screaming at him as he came by on the next possession. Play got a bit rougher on court and a few
players were hitting the floor. Peake
tripped on a feed going for a layup. Deuce
cut through the defense for a layup. The
crowd loved it. 49-40 Crimson at the buzzer.
Third
Period
An Open Practice for the Basketball team was announced for
Saturday before the Football game. I was
interested, but more on that later.
There was a replica jersey toss into the crowd. That was quite a giveaway.
At the start, Peake took a poke and had to sit on the
floor for a moment to collect himself.
Issa got fouled, but missed both free throws. (Gotta work on that, big guy.) He did make one after being fouled on a
layup. DaJuan cleaned up a miss with a
basket. Issa was fouled on one-hand jam
attempt. He made one of his throws.
Dominique and his coaches were all up and yelling. Crimson was having trouble handling
Issa. They did come back with a
block. Chi Chi hit a 3, but Roy came
back with an uncontested layup. 59-45 Crimson going into a timeout. I noticed only the Cheerleaders in the white uniforms were performing and throwing
stuff to the crowd. The squad in black was only sitting on the
stands even though they were there in uniform.
Deshawndre found Chi Chi for an Alley Oop. Roy came up with a 3 and there was another
timeout. The teams’ WAC trophy was in the house.
It was announced that fans could get their pictures taken with it after
the game. There was yet another timeout
right after. For this break, the cameras
were just going around the crowd finding kids.
One of the Cheerleaders was holding an unhappy little girl. The Cheerleader was trying to cheer her up.
DaJuan came back out with a 3. There was a pass after that went to one of the refs, who ducked out of the way. One of the players asked if he was okay afterward. Pinson found Peake for an Alley Oop. That looked good. Deuce (pictured) put in a bucket and had a layup. Shahar Lazar from Israel had a steal. Feit put in another 3 and Lazar had a layup. 73-61 Crimson was the final. The coach addressed the crowd with some encouraging words at the end.
The scoreboard wasn’t showing player scoring. I felt lucky they were showing the score. I didn’t think to try and keep something like
a scorecard. Just from observation, Issa Muhammed looked really
impressive. Kyle Feit looked like a sharpshooter with 5 3’s by my count (pictured at the top, #5). On Dever’s report on the game, he liked Xavier Pinson’s play and hoped he became
eligible soon. Lastly, Deuce Benjamin was a
crowd-pleaser. If he can play like that
in a game, we may have another Johnny McCants.
(Those two are not at all the same size.
I’m just speaking metaphorically.)
The kids stormed the court for autographs (along with some parents). I decided not to stick around. It was going to take too long and . . . I get more embarrassed getting guys’ autographs (like the Baseball team) than I ever get over girls’ autographs. I think Johnny was there for autographs, but he wasn’t sitting at the table with the team. Speaking of girls’ teams, I think I saw Aggie Soccer there in the crowd. It’s hard to miss Xitlaly Hernandez and I think Makenna Gottschalk was there. Ron and I went for Blasts at Sonic afterward.
Out-of-Town
Scores
I’d assumed Soccer was out-of-town for a game, but
actually Aggie Volleyball was. They won against CBU that night. Molly Johnson and Katie Birtcil had 15 kills each.
Taylor Snow was in on 11
blocks. Service errors were still a
problem. On Saturday though, they were
swept in the 3 sets by GCU in front
of a big crowd. Three Lopes players were
in double figures for kills. Only Molly
got double figures with 12. (Mia Peterson was second with 8.) Either GCU was blocking out Katie, or she was
hurt again. Again, there were service
error issues, but GCU basically did everything better than the Aggies.
Late Friday brought tragic news. A player on the San Jose Spartans, Aggie
Football’s next opponent, had died in a scooter accident from being hit by
a bus. (There are possibly more
embarrassing ways to go.) The Saturday
game was postponed. Nobody’s sure about
a reschedule at this point.
As late as the cancelation was, Homecoming events went on
anyway. I called Ron Saturday morning
about going to the Basketball practice, but he had other things to do. I kind of wanted to go anyway, but was sort
of exhausted from Thursday and Friday (lots of backed up work from being off)
and I didn’t want to go by myself. At
the university, the tailgaters were still partying there. The Band
performed and the postgame autograph session with the Football team happened
anyway for the fans that came out. It
was a nice gesture by the university.
Lastly, the weather turned nasty on Sunday. Ron and I were supposed to go out for Aggie Softball against the Lobos and
the Miners. I called him to cancel,
since NASCAR and F1 were on. Even Ron wasn’t comfortable with going, so he
came over. We watched the races and
watched the baseball playoffs on his laptop.
(Yes, all at the same time. We
also watched Twitch and some old Godzilla movies.) He brought two big bags of chips and a box of
Drumstick ice creams. We got Jimmie Johns later.
It was fun, but I do feel bad that I was the reason why we
missed all four scheduled softball weekends this fall. Sorry, ladies. From seeing the pictures on Twitter, the
girls weren’t wearing uniforms with numbers on them. I don’t know what kind of notes I could have
taken on the games.
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