Since there’s been no 800GP story on a WAC game since Sam Wasson and I both covered the NMSU-Idaho game nearly two weeks ago, the conference race has begun to take shape. Tonight’s opponents in Las Cruces are the clear favorites: Nevada came in unbeaten with a 5-0 record including key road wins at both Utah State and Idaho; last week the Wolf Pack won two games at home, defeating future Summit League member Nebraska-Omaha and conference foe Fresno State. New Mexico State is 4-1 with two road wins of its own, but those came against Louisiana Tech and San Jose State, two of the bottom three teams in the standings. The Aggies last week took them to San Jose for an easy victory, and to Hawai'i, where they trailed by 19 points in the second half, only to have their monster comeback (30 points in the final eight minutes) come up short by four.

Trailing these two in the standings are Hawai'i and Idaho at 3-2 each, Utah State and Louisiana Tech at 2-3, Fresno State at 1-4, and San Jose State at 0-5. One key game last weekend had Idaho hold the home court against Utah State in both teams’ only conference game, giving the USU Aggies their third conference defeat; the Aggies also lost at future conference foe Seattle. The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs surprise weekend sweep including a win at Hawai’i, aided by the Thursday illnesses of two Hawai’i starters. Fresno State’s Bulldogs (there seems to be a shortage of team nicknames in the WAC, we seem to keep reusing them) also won a non-Division I game against Cal State-San Marcos last week. On Monday of this week, San Jose’s Spartans got a much needed victory over Cal State-Bakersfield. After this weekend’s full slate of games, the conference season will be half complete, as each team will have played seven of the fourteen WAC contests.

New Mexico State and Nevada have never met in a non-conference game. The Aggies won thirteen of eighteen Big West games between the schools between 1993 and 2000, splitting the two conference tournament contests. The Wolf Pack has won ten of the sixteen games since the Aggies joined the WAC for the 2006 season, but the Aggies have won all four WAC tournament games, including two in Reno and last year in Las Vegas, and three of the last four games. In Las Cruces however, the Wolf Pack has won two of the prior three years.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Despite a season-high 21 points from senior guard Hernst Laroche, the New Mexico State men's basketball team's last comeback against Nevada fell short, 68-60.

The Aggies fell to 14-7, 4-2 in their first WAC home loss of the season, while the Wolf Pack won its 14th straight game and improved to 17-3, 6-0.

Laroche hit two of his four 3-pointers in the Aggies' 13-0 run to cut Nevada's lead to five, 62-57, with 2:06 remaining. He also had an assist in the rally. NM State held the Wolf Pack without a field goal for over five minutes.

With 7:08 to play in the second half, the Aggies trailed Nevada, 62-44, but a three-point play from redshirt senior forward Wendell McKines started a NM State run. McKines ended the game with 15 points and eight rebounds.

Laroche followed with a pair of 3-pointers before finding sophomore center Tshilidzi Nephawe for a dunk on the next possession. Nephawe then hit two free throws with 2:06 left to bring the Aggies within five, 62-57.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Head cross country and track and field coach Orin Richburg recently added Christopher Huff to assist the coaching staff with the upcoming indoor and outdoor track season.

Huff will be assisting in coaching the cross country teams, as well as the distance runners for the track and field team.

Huff's most recent coaching experience stems from New England College where he was the head coach for cross country from 2005-07. During his three-year tenure at New England College, Huff led his team to one Commonwealth Coast Conference championship and helped break nine school records in track and field. Huff also coached two CCC Rookie of the Year athletes and five CCC All-Conference athletes.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Showdown tonight in the Pan Am. First place is on the line as the Aggies try to knock off Nevada. By now you're well aware of our thoughts on the whole situation with regards to the shortened league schedule of 14 games and that this is a do-or-die type of game for the men's basketball team with regards to the regular season championship. A win by the Aggies puts them into a tie for first place (owning the head-to-head tiebreaker), a loss really puts Nevada in the catbird seat as they'd be two games up on the rest of the field with road wins over three of the four title contenders (a road trip to Honolulu still to come).

If you read yesterday's post you know that somehow stopping the Wolf Pack starters will be the key. So who needs a big game tonight? The Aggies needs big efforts from Hamidu Rahman and to a lesser degree Tshilidzi Nephawe. The Aggies have a considerable advantage in the post in terms of size and depth. The Aggies really need to get into the Wolf Pack bench in the front court where they can really take advantage of that lack of Nevada depth. The Aggie guards will need to have one of their best defensive games in order to stop the trio of Wolf Pack sharpshooters. You can probably figure on Deonte Burton scoring between 20 and 25 points tonight, he's a great player and he's going to get his points. He's also a stone cold killer in crunch time, demands the ball and will take the shot with the game on the line (he did so against Utah State and crushed their spirits with a four-point play). Malik Story and Jerry Evans Jr. are also sharpshooters and the Aggies can't let them get loose. Nevada has the ability to light it up from three and that will be the single biggest key and if the Aggies can take that away from Nevada, combined with the Aggies' advantage in the paint, they will win this game.

In terms of scoring, you know Wendell is going to get his points, Hernst has been more aggressive since the departure of Christian Kabongo, to the betterment of the Aggie offense. Daniel Mullings is a threat for the Aggies as well and could also have a solid scoring game, though his major contribution will be being able to closing out on three point shooters much like he did against Utah State.

The Aggies themselves need to hit three or four threes in this game as well, just to keep Nevada's defense from sagging into the paint and clogging up the lane.

We fully expect the Aggies to come out fired up and we expect them to win this game. The game is scheduled for a 7:00 p.m. (MT) start and can be seen on AggieVision, ESPN Full Court and ESPN3.com. Radio coverage will be available via the Aggie Sports Network.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - The New Mexico State Athletics Department in conjunction with US Bank is proud to announce this year's inductees into the US Bank/NM State Athletics Hall of Fame.  The class of 2012 will include former Aggie head athletic trainer C.R. Bickerstaff (posthumously), former sports information director (SID) at NM State Dave Lopez and former Aggie football standout Tony Wragge.  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggies take on Nevada tomorrow night in a battle for first place and one of the big keys for the Aggies will be to guard the three point arc against Nevada. The Wolf Pack were a decent three point shooting team in non-conference play hitting 39 percent of their threes but they've really kicked it up a notch in conference play hitting 43 percent of their threes in their five wins. They hit nine against Idaho, ten against Utah State (including Deonte Burton's dagger four-point play when the Pack led by just two late), a whopping 16 against San Jose State. They've hit just five and six in their past two games respectively.

The two players the Aggies really need to be aware of in respect to shooting the three are Deonte Burton and Malik Story. In five WAC games they're 14-of-32 and 15-of-34 respectively, 43 and 44 percent. "You've gotta limit his [Deonte's] touches," said Coach Menzies. "Even though he's the point guard you've still gotta try to keep the ball out of his hands and when he gives it up you've got to try to do a good job of making him work to get it back, just the basic things you would do with any scorer whether he was the point or on the wing position."

"Guys like that are hard to guard, guys that can shoot it and bounce it are always the trickiest because you've got to protect the dribble and protect the paint but you've got to be aggressive about challenging shots."

The Aggies also need to take advantage of their depth, in particular the fact that they've got two capable scorers coming off the bench in Tyrone Watson and to a lesser degree Tshilidzi Nephawe. The entire season the Wolf Pack have gotten the a majority of their scoring in games from their starting five. It's extremely rare when a bench player for Nevada is a major contributor in terms of point production. Just twice this entire season has a bench player scored more than 10 points coming off the bench and both of those were in the first three games and by the same player. They've had a small smattering of eight and six point games from a bench player but it's usually just one player and never more than one play. If the Aggies can get Olek Czyz or Dario Hunt in foul trouble (or both) early, it could be a huge advantage because of the lack of bench production we talked about. That's not to say that one of the Nevada players isn't capable of stepping up but through 19 games, it hasn't been the case.

If the Aggies are able to get one of the Wolf Pack starters in foul trouble early, could the Pack break out a junk defense? Hawai'i did and had some success against the Aggies (as did UTEP earlier in the season). Coach Menzies doesn't believe the Aggies will see more junk defense from opponents and also feels that the Aggies made the adjustments necessary but just didn't finish by making shots. "We just missed shots. I don't think the junk defenses are what hurt us. We had great looks, we had 81 attempts but we missed 48 I think. I don't think that hurt us as much as us just shooting ourselves in the foot." Regardless of what defense the Aggies see tomorrow night, making shots will be the key.

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New Mexico State senior Natalia Salum has been named Western Athletic Conference Women’s Tennis Athletes of the Week for the week of Jan. 16-22.

Salum, a senior from Durango, Mexico (Colegio Americano Durango), opened the year with three straight-set victories to help NM State to a 1-2 record last week in Las Vegas. She never lost more than three games in any singles set and gave up just 15 games total in three singles matches. Along with partner Jodie Williams, she went 3-0 in doubles at the Nos. 1 and 2 positions. Salum and Williams were promoted to the No. 1 slot on Sunday after their pair of wins at the No. 2 slot on Friday. The tandem’s wins helped the Aggies claim the doubles point twice last week and earned the only doubles win over No. 36 UNLV on Friday.

It's a big week for Aggie men's basketball. Coming into the Pan Am this week is first place Nevada (and Fresno State on Saturday). The Wolf Pack are 5-0 in conference play, one game in front of the Aggies. If the Aggies want to win the regular season title, this is a must-win. Nevada will come in looking to virtually wrap up the regular season title by winning. A win would put them two games clear of the rest of the WAC and perhaps even more importantly for Nevada it would give them road wins in the WAC at Idaho, at Utah State and at New Mexico State, three of the four "contenders" with only a trip to Honolulu left as a "tough" road trip. That's why Thursday night's game is so vitally important for the Aggies. Just as Saturday night's game was a must-win for Hawai'i, this is a must-win for the Aggies.

It's also important for another reason. The ESPNU Bracketbusters match ups will be announced next week and the Aggies could receive a televised game with a win. Right now the Aggies have the 12th best RPI of the home teams. Unfortunately, the designated road teams this year in the Bracketbusters aren't as strong as the home teams which means outside of Wichita State (27), St. Mary's (32), Long Beach State (47), Northern Iowa (47), Akron (65), the pickings are slim in terms of quality opponents for the home teams.

As it stands right now the top four matchups would likely be St. Mary's at Creighton, Wichita State at Murray State, Northern Iowa at Iona and Long Beach State at Oral Roberts.

With an RPI of 85, the Aggies will likely host either Drake, 12-8 (92), Lamar, 12-7 (104), Valparaiso, 14-7 (117) or UC-Santa Barbara, 9-7 (134). We'd really like to see the Aggies host Long Beach State but unfortunately the wealth of good home teams this year makes that highly unlikely. Outside of the top three or four match ups, geography generally is a major consideration in the selections.

You can view the entire spreadsheet of home/away teams and their current RPIs (as of yesterday) here (courtesy of VCURamNation)

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The trip to the islands was a tough one for the men's and women's basketball teams. The Aggie women lost 51-48 in the first game and the men fell 91-87 in the second game.

For the women it was another tough loss in which they were competitive but just could not come up with enough plays in "winning time". Tabytha Wampler had a near double-double with 24 points and nine rebounds but didn't get much help. Kaitlyn Soto had 12 points but Erica Sanchez was held scoreless.

The Aggies were unable to force turnovers against the Wahine. UH came into the game averaging 21 turnovers per game in WAC play but had just 10. The Aggies committed 17 turnovers. The Aggies also didn't get much help from the officials. The Aggies shot just four free throws while UH shot 22.

There was one no-call in particular late that hurt the Aggies. With the Aggies trailing by just one, Kaitlyn Soto drove into the middle of the lane and ran into a UH defender causing her to turn the ball over. There could have very easily been a foul called there. Instead nothing was called, the Aggies turned the ball over, UH maintained their one-point advantage and would later get a pair of free throws to go up by three.

The Aggies did get a couple chances to tie it up late but Sanchez's three point attempt fell short and Kaitlyn Soto's three point attempt was blocked.

It's tough because once agains the Aggies were right there with a chance to win and this road trip could have very easily ended up 2-0 instead of 0-2. The good news for the Aggies is that they get both of these teams in the Pan Am and both will be winnable games for the Aggies.

The Aggie men also suffered defeat as the game turned into the Zane Johnson show. The Aggies led 10-7 early and then UH went on a 15-1 run. The Aggies cut the lead down to just one point with about a minute and a half to go but UH finished the half on an 11-2 run and took a one point lead into the break.

The Aggies cut it to five early in the second half but Johnson buried one of his seven threes in the game and UH exploded and led the game fairly comfortably for most of the rest of the game. The Aggies did make things very interesting late getting it down to four points on a couple of occasions.

Before Aggie fans start jumping off the bandwagon, it's important to remember this was not a must-win game for the Aggies but it was for Hawai'i. Eleven (or possibly twelve) games will win the regular season title and the two most important things are to a) not lose any games at home and b) not lose to a lower-tier team. The Aggies did not suffer either fate last night. The Warriors were our preseason pick to finish second in the league and this one one of the games we had the Aggies losing.

As Jason Groves pointed out last night, the big picture says that the Aggies are just fine in terms of the regular season title race. They just need to take care of business at home on Thursday night against Nevada and they'll be tied for first place (with the head-to-head tiebreaker). As long as the Aggies beat everyone at home and don't lose to lower-tier teams (Fresno, LA Tech, San Jose State) they'll be fine. We can also see them winning in Logan this season although a win at Idaho will be tough but doable. The Aggies could very well finish league play at 12-2 (and that may have to happen for them to win the regular season).

The other big big positive to take away from last night is that the Aggies (contrary to what we thought possible) were able to rally from a 19-point deficit in the second half. The Aggies scored 30 points in the final eight minutes of play, an incredible statistic if you really think about it. One of the big concerns we have for the Aggies is that without a three point shooter (or a couple of three point shooters) that it would be hard for the Aggies to shoot themselves back into a game quickly, however, they showed that with they can erase a big deficit quickly and they can file that away for later.

Secondly, by staging a late rally, even though they didn't come out with the win, they were able to generate some very positive momentum for themselves heading into Thursday. The Aggies will feel much differently about themselves heading into Thursday versus if they had just rolled over and lost by 18 or 20 points. The way a team finishes a game can have a lot of impact on how they come out the next game (call it the hangover effect).

Really the only negative that we can think of from last night's game is that for the majority of the game, the Aggies were getting beat on nearly every 50/50 ball. Good teams and good players (like Zane Johnson) are going to have big nights like they did but that shouldn't affect the Aggies ability to get to 50/50 balls or make hustle plays.

A couple of randoms from last night's game. UH's big man Vander Joaquim picked up two quick fouls in the game and was replaced by Davis Rozitis. Rozitis played the remainder of the half and fouled out before halftime, the first time we've ever seen a player foul out in the first half. It wasn't for naught either as Rozitis had himself a good half finishing with nine points, five rebounds and three blocks in 14 minutes of action.

Second, Hamidu Rahman put together another strong WAC game finishing with 16 points. With 20 points against SJSU and 16 against UH, he's now got 932 points and is well on his way to joining the 1,000 point club. In fact, he should get there by the middle of February and could get there earlier with more games like this past weekend.

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