Fred Peete and Justin Hawkins

Justin Hawkins had a workout with the L.A. Clippers on Tuesday. Here is the story.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2008/06/11/a_star_turn_looming_for_boston/

Like a poster on another blog entry told me, Hawkins was a late invite to the Orlando Pre Draft camp, and he has been busy ever since.Look for a story on Hawkins in Friday's paper.

After talking with Hawkins, he told me that has also worked out with the Kings, Lakers and is scheduled to work out for the Wizards, Bobcats, Raptors and Rockets next week, as well as a potential workout with the Jazz. He said that Reggie Theus was on hand for his workout in Sacramento and that the former NMSU coach showed a lot of interest. The Kings have the 42 and 43 picks.

It's good to see that Hawkins is getting a look. I also talked with Fred Peete, who said that he worked out with the Nets last Thursday and with Orlando on Saturday. Fred said they went through 3 on 3 drills, and shooting drills, but I believe Fred's biggest strengths to be his basketball IQ.

Previous posters have asked about the schedule, which I'm still working on, but here is what we already know

Home and home with UNM and UTEP
At North Texas
At Long Beach State
Two Lou Henson Classic games
A road Bracket buster game

I've heard rumors of a couple of other non-conference opponents but nothing concrete as of yet.

Women's hoops lands transfer

I spoke with former Texas guard Crystal Boyd, who said she is transferring to NMSU. I will have a story for Saturday's paper on Boyd, who was a McDonalds All-American guard out of Little Rock Arkansas. She received a medical redshirt in 06-07 and will have to sit out another year and be on the court as a senior in 09, but she should add even more skill and depth to the Aggies backcourt. Boyd decided to leave in April, saying that she wanted to contribute more to a team.

Anyone know How many McDonalds All Americans have played at NMSU? Elijah Ingram comes to mind, but is that it?

Pre draft camp

Here is a list of players from the Orlando Pre-draft camp. You will notice there are no NMSU names, which isn't too surprising, but Justin Hawkins had a chance I thought to be invited after playing pretty well in Portsmouth after the season. I'm watching a game right now with JR Giddens, who the ESPN guys said was having a good camp. Marcelus Kemp is also on the list.


http://www.draftexpress.com/article/2008-NBA-Pre-Draft-Camp-Rosters-and-Physical-Only-Invites-2897/



I talked with Fred Peete last week. Fred said he had hired an agent and was planning on attending some camps down the road, hopefully earning a tryout with a team. I'm no NBA scout, but it seemed to me that Hawkins, Peete, for his size and ability to score and defend, and Martin Iti, have the potential to play basketball for a living somewhere. What do you think?

Women's hoops news

Spoke with Darin Spence for a recruiting roundup story that will be in Thursday's paper. But he did inform me of some interesting schedule changes. It seems as the women's program continues to improve, they are improving their non-conference schedule. In addition to the UNM and UTEP games, the Aggies have a home-and-home set with Kansas, starting with Jan. 4 at Lawrence. The Aggies also have home dates with Cal Poly and UC Irvine. Other road game are at Long Beach, Northern Colorado and they play in a San Diego Tournament where Wake Forest is slated to show up. Thanksgiving Classic opponents are Loyola-Chicago and Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

I hope to have some men's schedule info in the next couple of weeks.

Two commits

The Aggies received verbal committments from 7-foot-1, 235-pound center Mouhamadou Abdoulaye Ndoye from Senegal and 6-foot-3 point guard Johnny Higgins, who played the last two years at Notre Dame Prep.According to Higgins' father, after Johnny Higgins visited the NMSU campus last weekend, he cut off the rest of his recruiting and will move to Las Cruces for summer school this summer.

Both players will receive scholarships and be on the Aggies roster next season.

Higgins is a player who will come in right away and compete for minutes. He's a prep school player, which means he's already competed at a high level. He originally signed with Duquesne to join a prep school coach, but after committing in early November, he was released from his letter of intent in early April. Ndoye is obviously a project type player that adds size.

With the two additions, the Aggies recruiting class looks like this. Let me know if I miss something

Centers
Mouhamadou Abdoulaye Ndoye
Hamidu Rahman
Chris Gabriel

Forwards
Troy Gillenwater

Guards
Terrance Joyner
Johnny Higgins
Faisal Aden
Robert Lumpkins

The regular signing period ends on May 21. Look for more on this story in the Sun News in Saturday's paper

Basketball items

I wish I had some recruiting news, which I know is what everyone wants to talk about, but I had a couple of smaller items.

Jorge Gutierrez ended up signing with Cal. He took a visit the weekend after he was at NMSU and apparently liked what he saw. The Aggies have another guard, Johnny HIggins from Notre Dame Prep on campus this weekend. He played with Michael Beasely two years ago. I hope to have more on his visit next week.

To the coaching front, assistant coaches Matt Grady and John McMullen each received one-year contract renewals since they were hired as one-year coaches. Chris Pompey still has a year on his contract.

Grady's and McMullen's contract is good from May 1 through April 30 of 2009. Also renewed was head women's coach Darin Spence, whose contract is good from May 1 through April 30 of 2011. His two assistants, Joel Washington and Brooke Atkinson, were also renewed for a year.

It happens elsewhere

Don't know if you've seen this story about Indiana Freshman Eli Holman asking out.

A couple of thoughts crossed my mind, first being that players want out across the country for one reason or another. Here is a guy that wants to leave Indiana and an established coach like Tom Crean.

Second, as you may know Holman played with Wendell McKines at Richmond High School in Oakland.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news?slug=ap-indiana-holmantransfers&prov=ap&type=lgns