BJ West and Abdoulaye Ndoye are dressed and went through warmups
Watson and Castillo getting the start tonight
16-9 UTEP 1513
It's been a better start than the last time the Aggies played this team. But UTEP scored on seven of their first nine possessions and the Aggies have turned it over four times.
21-15 UTEP 1154
BJ West checked in at 1224.
The Aggies are in the one and one at this point with Gibson about to step to the free throw line. I'd be worried about Rahman. UTEP has thrown in a number of post players and Rahman just now left the game.
29-28 UTEP 7:55
Menzies was ejected with 9:57 left in the first half after Young was apparently fouled in transition. Menzies was given a technical as players traveled up the court and received an additional as he walked away from the offical.
The Aggies are on a 7-0 run after the four free throws from the double tech put the Miners up nine. Gibson is at the line with a chance to give the Aggies their first lead.
39-33 UTEP 313
NMSU went on a 10-2 run after Menzies was ejected to take their first lead. Mick Durham took over the coaching duties. UTEP's Jeremy Williams hit a couple 3sas the Miners are now on a 8-0 run
45-35 UTEP half
A pretty inspired 5 minute period by NMSU after their coach got tossed, but UTEP closed the first half on a 12 run in the last 432
67-62 UTEP 654
This is probably the best game the Aggies have played. EP Times reporter Bill Knight said its the Miners worst. The Aggies have closed to within 2 and 3 but it seems the Miners have answered each time. Gordo hit back-to-back 3s to make it a 5-point game.
17 comments:
The Agies are playing with heart. They are still making stupid decisions but they are showing they want it more than UTEP. Lumpkins hasnt played at all which is probably a good thing.
What a great game!!!! I hope Menzies gets kicked out of every gane this year,,,,,,,,
Menzies gone,,,,,,,Aggies WIN,,,,,
Still time for him to go.....
DM
Menzies gets ejected and the Aggies play their best game of the season? Hmmm.....what does that tell you?
Great win. It's a shame it wasn't televised. Nice to see the results when they take care of the ball and play as a team.
Tonight's Aggie victory over the orange utepidity was great. I would be lying if I said I saw it coming but it is tremendous to beat a rival and to be down by 10 at half and win by 7 shows a lot of heart. The Aggie coaching staff had a good game plan and the players, with the exception of a 5 minute span at the end of the first half, executed it well. They won as a team. This trend started the second half of the UNM game and I hope it continues from here on in.
It was the worst game that the Miners play because it was the first time that they had been challenged all season. The schedule that they have does not prepare them to be in close games, it allows them to win big and give guys minutes to play. That doesnt translate into knowing what to do when you cant put the other team away and when you see yourself unable to catchup with time winding down. The Aggies have been through tough games but tonight that only made them continue to fight and that was the difference in the game. Thats why UTEP wont be the best team we face this season.
GS
Great game tonight. I loved all of it. Seeing and saying that we have so much to build off of.
I loved the fact that Menzies was fired up and getting into the refs early even before he was ejected. Rarely have I seen him display that much emotion and passion and it seem it really ignite a fire in our players. Big props to Mick Durham for taking over the ship and keeping the team together. Lots of guts playing with 4 guards at times in the second half.
The Aggies played with so much heart and fight tonight. In the first game versus the Miners the Aggies didn't seem to want to fight. The Miners were dunking and talking trash to the Ags all night long and they were just accepting it. It didn't seem like they wanted to fight back. But tonight they came with a totally different attitude. Every time they were down they fought back. Culpepper and Jy were going back and forth the whole second half. Hamidu, Merker and Merker fought harder and wanted it more than the UTEP bigs. And you could easily argue with Character, Portalin, Moultrie and Britte that the Ags were severely outmanned in the post but they held their ground and played better than the UTEP bigs.
Instead of jacking a ton of unnecessary threes Gibson handed out 7 assists. JY and Gibs did a great job today moving the ball and giving Laroche a break at the guard position.
The addition of West seem to really help give Hamidu some big minutes of rest on his way to a double double.
We made clutch free throws. Everyone contributed. Aggies fans should be proud plus Christmas might come early with McKines and/or Gillenwater might rejoin the Aggies depending on grades.
Things are looking up :)
Well the difference was free throws. The Aggies were brilliant from the line going 28-32 and 17-17 down the stretch. I've NEVER seen a better Aggie freethrow shooting team. Mick Durham has a lot of experience so it didnt surprise me that he handled the task at hand.
Big minutes from Merker. This guy got two or three HUGE rebounds down the stretch.
Big game from Gordo. He's a gamer.
Gibson scares the Hell out of me every time he touches the ball. But he played well even though he didn't have a great shooting night.
Lets build from here.
FYI, the game was televised at
http://channelsurfing.net/. It had the UTEP play-by-play man, Jon Teicher, and ran about 1-2 minutes delayed from Jack Nixon's live broadcast. Not all the NMSU games are available, but some are. Many other college and pro games are available for free at that site.
Great job, Ags!
After watching last nights game, I really hope that both McKines and Gillenwater are benched when and IF they return at all. These two guys showed they don't have what it takes to be student-athletes and don't care for their team or the fans. They may be great players but they sure aren't great student-athletes. It is not fair to the team that we saw last night to have these two getting play time immediately after becoming eligible.
Well, it only took 3+ years for Menzies to show some damn emotion and the team responded!
Hey Marvin,
You can still be an animal on the court and a gentlemen off the court.
If you don't want your family to see you in a controlled rage during a game...leave them at home.
The best players and coaches use this formula for success!
Remember, your here to win games not win Mr. Congeniality!
Jefe
I thought Mick did a great job coaching the team. He was very smart in subbing Kelly and Gordo interchangeably at the end of the game. I believe he was putting in Kelly to get defensive rebounds and putting Gordo in on offense in case we needed to get a three off. Smart thinking.
-Lynn
Good win. Way to go Aggies!
Avoiding a sweep in the I-10/I-25 series has got to be the next best thing to sweeping!
Mick Durham kept them out of the swiss cheese zone, but 80 pts is 80 pts. Credit a patsy game on the schedule that Boston critics whine about, NC A&T, for preparing the Aggies to step out and man up.
Offensively, this was live-by-the-three, just like every game so far. Trey's went down this time. After that it was katy bar the door with solid FT shooting and a 3-year-old Passos and Iti albatross falls from their necks! Even rebounding totals though? Might realistically expect that with Passos and Iti. This game vindicates the Aggies because they never gave up in any other game they lost badly this year to Fullerton, UNM or UTEP.
JG: out of 15 NMSU assists in the game, five were awarded on the seven 3-pointers made from downtown. Gibson and JY each dished 2 and Hernst fed the other one. That's why Jimmy says live by the three, but really it's your only gameplan going into Haskins Center...and it freaking worked! Hallelujah! Don's reaction might have been much the same as Tony Barbee's... Congratulations to Gordo for back to back stand-out games! Shooter's slump was obviously the diagnosis.
This was a good effort from everyone that played. I like that we didnt have subs going in every 2 minutes.
Any word on Wendell and Troy?
Good point on the threes, Jimmy.
However, don't you think that the assists may be the cause of the better downtown shooting? It's generally higher percentage to shoot off a kickout than off the dribble. (JY drilling one in Caracter's grill excepted).
The key last night was ball movement. With it, we'll continue to put up around 80 points a night. Without it, we're in the high 60s.
Yeah, affirmative Justin -
Jimmy says keep shooting from 3pt even though they moved the line back last year and it's a low percentage gamble - if that's your only chance.
I was hoping this was only temporary until Troy and Big Wen got their credits on track. Merker definitely made the right decision by enrolling in grad school, getting the most PT of any walk-on since Jalen Dominguez!
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