Written By Steve Macy, NMSU Associate Athletic Director

When we announced the Aggie Economic Relief Plan, there were some who were quite curious. For us in the marketing world, it is pure fun. For the past few months, we have been inundated with woeful economic news. It has been hard to watch. Our thought was to offer our very own economic relief plan.

Times are tough for many. The dollar is stretched thin and thoughts of entertaining an entire family or a group of friends are requiring a lot more thought. With our $2 ticket and concession special, we want to say thanks to the Las Cruces community by giving it a little relief. Two bucks is all it takes to get in the gates. Couple it with the game being on the 22nd at 2PM and two dollars made all the sense in the world at this time for this community.

Good morning Aggie fans, first off congratulations to seniors Lindsey Yon, Krystal Torres and Amber Simpson who along with junior Krista Altermatt were named to the First Team All-WAC volleyball team. Freshman setter Jennah DeVries was named to the All-Freshman team and head coach Mike Jordan was named Coach of the Year. The Aggies along with the rest of the WAC are in Honolulu this week for the WAC tournament which begins this morning with the 8/9 play-in game between 9-seed Louisiana Tech and 8-seed Fresno State. The Aggies will face the winner of that match tonight at around 8:00 p.m. The Aggies swept the regular season meetings with both Louisiana Tech and Fresno State, though the Aggies did drop a set to Fresno State two weeks ago in Fresno. There's an old adage in sports that says it's hard to beat a team three times in a season, we would agree with that but only to a certain extent. It holds more true when you have teams that close to equal in terms of talent and ability. Clearly the Aggies are head and shoulders above both Bulldog teams (FSU and LTU) and as long as the Aggies are focused on tonight's match and not tomorrow night's semifinal match or Sunday's final match, they'll be just fine. Assuming the Aggies take care of business this evening, tomorrow will see the Aggies face one of the two teams they swept last week, either Utah State or San Jose State, two matches where the aforementioned adage would more likely come into play (although again, if the Aggies do what the Aggies have been doing all conference season long they should come out on top).

As we mentioned earlier tonight's match is slated to start at 8:00 p.m. MST (5:00 p.m. Honolulu time) but as is the case with all tournaments, the start time depends on when the preceding matches finish. Streaming video is available via WAC.tv. Single match prices are $9.95 per match or you can purchase a tournament pass for $19.95. Live Stats should also be available and we'll get that link out as soon as we can find it. Also, the official blog of the WAC is supposed to be live blogging each match (although the blog hasn't been updated since Nov. 11th).

Also happening tonight, the Aggie women's hoops team will mosey on down I-10 to face the UTEP Lady Miners. Coming into the season UTEP was receiving votes in the Top 25 but after two consecutive losses, one to a very good Kansas State team and one to a not quite as good UC-Irvine team, the Miners are now 0-2. The Aggies started off the season by beating UC-Irvine but then were dominated by Cal Poly two nights later (a very much undervalued Cal Poly team in our opinion). In this week's interview with Coach Spence we talked with him about those two games as well as what he thinks his team needs to improve on. Look for a little different look from the Aggies this evening as they try to run their offense through their guards more. Madison Spence will likely be taking a few more shots as will Danisha Corbett. We're also looking forward to seeing more from Kaitlyn Soto, the Aggies' young freshman guard who, quite possibly is the fastest person on the team (along with Danisha Corbett) and packs a ton of energy into her little 5'8" frame. Think of her as a female version of Allen Iverson or Dwayne Wade (as undergraduates of course, not the NBA versions). Perhaps a more relevant comparison is that she's got Wendell McKines' motor and some of Jahmar Young's driving ability. She's unafraid to drive the lane against much much bigger defenders and once she starts to get comfortable at this level, she's going to wreak havoc on defenses. For a freshman having played just a couple games, she's also a pretty solid defender. Like Coach Spence talked about in our interview this week, she'll have some bad with the good. In Sunday's game against Cal Poly she bounced a ball off her foot while trying to beat a defender which of course led to a fast break bucket for the Mustangs, but she also will have plays where she splits three defenders in the lane going for a layup and gets fouled, goes to the line and makes the free throws.

The Aggies own a 44-28 advantage in the I-10 series but have dropped the past six meetings and are 5-11 this decade against UTEP. The Aggies came agonizingly close last season in the game in Las Cruces as a last second three pointer by UTEP sent the game to overtime where the Miners outlasted the Aggies 72-66. The game in El Paso saw the Aggies go up by eight points midway through the first half but a massive momemtum swing saw the Miners take a seven point lead into halftime, a lead which the Aggies could not cut into as they eventually lost by seven points, 64-57. We expect that the Aggies to come out much better than they did against Cal Poly and this should be a very entertaining game. There will be a media blackout (i.e. no radio, no t.v.). Live Stats are available for tonight's game, just click the link on our Aggie Women's Basketball Gameday Central section. Streaming video is available via the UTEP athletic website for $9.95. It's a monthly recurring charge so be sure to cancel your membership lest ye be caught contributing to the UTEP coffers.

Also, be sure to check back around noon for the latest blog post from NMSU Associate AD Steve Macy.
On to today's links...

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie women's basketball head coach Darin Spence throughout the 2008/2009 season as the Aggies take aim at a conference championship. This week we spoke with Coach Spence about their season opening games against UC-Irvine and Cal-Poly, this week's games against UTEP and Kent State and what improvements he's looking for from his young team.

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the first two games.
Darin Spence: We're far from where we need to be. Far from where I thought we would even be. At the same time we just have a disconnect between inside outside and I guess that's to be expected with as many new faces as we're trying to throw in there. And our so called experienced players are sophomores now. When I look out on the floor I see two freshmen and two sophomores of our five players at one time. At one aspect I'm kind of disappointed where we're at right now but at the same time I understand our learning curve and where we're at and where we need to go to. I think our guards are turning out to be the ones who we have to play through. I think we've got a good group of perimeter people that can play different spots and can make baskets and can drive it so we've got to tweak some things around to kind of let them go a little bit. At the same time I've just been disappointed in the play of our post players. Just for the lack of aggression and wanting the ball. They're skilled and they're good players but they're just not working hard enough to be good Division I players right now. So we have that imbalance and we're just disconnected right now.

HONOLULU, HI - The New Mexico State volleyball team placed five players on the all-Western Athletic Conference team while head coach Mike Jordan was named WAC Coach of the year as the WAC office announced the 2008 all-WAC teams, Wednesday, Nov. 19 in Honolulu, Hawai'i.

Seniors Amber Simpson (Quincy, Ill.), Krystal Torres (Las Cruces, N.M.,) and Lindsey Yon (San Antonio, Texas) join junior Krista Altermatt on the first team, while freshman Jennah DeVries (Denver, Colo.) earned a spot on the all-freshman team. Head coach Mike Jordan says this proves that his team and his support staff have worked hard all season and continue to do so.

"I'm really proud of them and they have all worked hard so they are very deserving," Jordan said. "They represent NMSU and our conference very well," Jordan said.

The Aggie men's basketball team played their first road game of the season last night and after getting down by 17 points in the first half at 31-14, scratched and clawed their way back into the game and were down by just five points late in the second half but in the end lost 73-60.

Despite the loss there were several encouraging factors about last night's performance. One, this very young Aggie team played well for their first time on the road and they were playing a very good Top 25 team, one that should contend with UCLA for the title in the Pac-10. Secondly, the Aggies shot their free throws well for the most part shooting 13-18 from the stripe. One thing to remember is that USC is a very tough defensive team, last season the Trojans held high flying Memphis to just 62 points. Third, the Aggies were able to force 16 turnovers on the Trojans and held Daniel Hackett and freshman standout DeMar DeRozan to just 17 points combined.

The Aggies had a couple of opportunities to cut the lead to a one possession game late but were unable to do so. We felt going in that the Aggies had a very good chance to be competitive in this game and they were. The Aggies had a bit of trouble handing the pressure of USC in the middle part of the first half and that part of the game was very reminiscent of what happened against Texas last season in the Legends Classic when the Aggies started turning the ball over in bunches which led to a large Texas lead. Just like that game last year, the Aggies outplayed (in our opinion) USC for much of the game with the lone exception of that one stretch.

There is plenty to build off of with this loss and we're sure the next time the Aggies take the floor that we'll see some more improvements from the team. Up next for the Aggies is a home game on Friday night at 7:30 against Pepperdine.

Be sure to check out this week's interview with Aggie head volleyball coach Mike Jordan. We talked with coach about last week's sweeps and also about what he thought the team's biggest improvement, best improvements have been this season. The Aggies are in Hawi'i this week for the WAC tournament which will kick off tomorrow morning. The Aggies will play the winner of the play-in match between Louisiana Tech and Fresno State. The Aggies match is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. MST.

If you didn't get a chance to yesterday, be sure to read the latest entry in David Holbrook's blog A View From The Stands. This weekend's game will be the final home game for David's son, Chase as well as the other 17 seniors on this Aggie team. As a reminder, all tickets are just $2, all concession items are just $2 and the game starts at 2:00 p.m. Get your tickets and come say goodbye to this amazing senior class.

Finally, we apologize for the very late notice (a mental slippage on our part) but the Aggie Gals, Las Cruces' very own girls only Aggie fan club will be meeting at My Brother's Place tomorrow evening at 6:00 p.m. Their guest will be tight ends/Kicking coach our buddy Bobby Willcox. For more information about the Aggie Gals call Karen Reed at 525-9851 (home) or 644-5493 (cell).

On to today's links... VB Links Fixed

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head volleyball coach Mike Jordan during the 2008 season. This week we talked with Coach Jordan about last week's matches against Utah State and San Jose State, the WAC tournament and what he thinks has been the biggest improvement during this season.

bleedCrimson.net: Against Utah State you mentioned last week that you were looking for the team to come out better than they had in the previous three matches and after getting down 3-0 in the first set it was lights out.
Mike Jordan: Yeah. Definitely one of our better attacking matches. We passed pretty well and really did a nice job offensively. Limited our errors. I think we had nine errors for the whole match. That's unheard of for us. Typically we can be anwhere from 28 to... I don't know what our average errors per game is but to keep it to three per game, we're pretty happy with that kind of performance this late in the season.

bc.net: You had three players that hit over .850, Lindsey who hit. 522 and Amber who hit .643.
MJ: We ball handled so well and so we were in system a lot and our setters did a great job of locating the ball which helps.

The Aggie men's basketball team was defeated by USC 73-60. The Aggies trailed the Trojans 34-24 at halftime and were down by 17 at 31-14 with 4:26 remaining in the first half but ended the half on a 10-3 run to close the gap to 10 points. The Aggies cut the lead to five points in the second half but turnovers and tough defense by the Trojans were too much for the Aggies to overcome.

The Aggies were 20-63 (31.7%) shooting and 7-20 (35%) from behind the three point line. The Aggies shot 18 free throws hitting 13 of them (72.2%). The Aggies were out rebounded 50-35 and were outscored 40-12 in the paint. Jahmar Young led the Aggies with 16 points and seven rebounds, Troy Gillenwater had 15 points and five rebounds for the Aggies. Jonathan Gibson had a quiet 11 points finishing just 3-13 from the field and hitting no three pointers.

The Aggies fall to 1-1 on the season and will resume play on Friday against Pepperdine.

Written By: David Holbrook

Final home game is upon us...

I have to admit that it finally got to me Saturday evening in Fresno after the Aggies fell to the Bulldogs 24-17.  The bowl game that so many had worked so hard for and felt was finally going to materialize was gone.  No more chances, no more wait till next week.  It's over.  Not only is that gone, this Saturday's game will be the last home game for the Aggie Seniors.
 
While this happens at every school, every year, this is the real deal for me.  It seems like just last December when Coach Mumme called with the news to Chase about his new job.  The friends we have made over the past four years will never be replaced and while we won't make the trip to Las Cruces as often, the wife and I will definitely make it back.  I will have to resort being an Aggie fan from afar via the internet and Aggie Access.  Not sure if they have counseling sessions set up for me, but I am sure I will be in need.

We've talked a lot about fan support here at bleedCrimson.net and you either agree with us, disagree with us or just don't care and everyone is certainly entitled to form their own opinions about fan support. As you probably have heard, Rocky Long the head football coach for our in-state rival UNM resigned yesterday. We've have never talked to Rocky and we've only been around him a couple times at press conferences and such but in his press conference yesterday he made a statement about fans that we wholeheartedly agree with and as such we're posting it here on the site for you to listen to. Please take a moment to listen to it before reading on. It's roughly two minutes long.