Interesting links

Darin Spence had a highly touted guard in town over the weekend on her first of three official visits she's taking. Spokane, Wash. product Jazmine Redmon has whittled her list down to NMSU, Oregon and Gonzaga. The Aggies have a bunch of guards, but you can never have too many, considering Crystal Boyd is a senior and Madison Spence and Danisha Corbett are juniors. ... Jahmar Young's name showed up again in an off-court incident, which is too bad. I ran into Jahmar earlier this summer and he seemed focused on the upcoming season. I still expect him to have a big year and apparently others do as well. And check out the WAC players in the first round of the next Draft, although I'm not sold on either George or Babbitt even though both have NBA bodies.

Kirk follow

Don't know if you care but I thought I would post this since I did an interview with Los Alamos big man Alex Kirk earlier this summer.

Texas Tech

While it's not a must win, or an official game for that matter, the Aggies scrimmage against Texas Tech has bigger implications to me than getting good competition against a Big 12 team early in the season. I don't know what all goes into scheduling but landing the Red Raiders in some form of home and home scenario is something that both coaches talked about. I recall conversations with McKinley Boston, who hopes to land more regional opponents on the schedule. I think renewing a series with Tech would be perfect for the Aggies and they would clearly be a home upgrade over some of the Aggies home opponents this year. At least it would be a start.

It sounds like members of both coaching staffs have crossed paths on the recruiting trail in the past but Pat Knight talked about his desire to get NMSU back on their schedule. Knight said that the Red Raiders will return the favor and scrimmage the Aggies in Las Cruces next year. Maybe it can turn into games that count down the line.

Women's standouts early on

I wanted to put something on here about the women's team. Like the men, the Aggies have eight hours a week with players until practice starts in October. Only two of those hours can be on the court with skill instruction and only in groups of four.

Aggies coach Darin Spence said he has worked out with his players three times, mixing up the groups each time.

"As a group, the entire group has grown up a lot since a year ago," Spence said. "The maturity level is a lot higher even though we are sophomores, juniors and some freshmen. They are much more mature than they were a year ago."

I asked Spence for some standouts so far;

6-foot-3 sophomore Cindy Ekweozor was the first one he talked about.Spence said he expects her to contribute more in the pain this year after she had spot minutes last year.
"Cindy really came back much much better. Her attention span, work ethic and intensity is night and day better. As a 6-3 rebounder and defender, she can really help us when we play big teams. She is someone that we really hope can give us minutes this year."

After not playing basketball last season, junior college transfer guard Jasmine Lowe is working her way into shape. Lowe will play both guard positions. Sophomore Kelsie Rozendaal has improved her conditioning and junior guard Danisha Corbett is coming off thumb surgery on her shooting hand. Corbett hurt the injury in San Diego last season and played through it, getting surgery in the spring. Spence said it has forced her to improve her ball handling with her left hand.


Spence said all three freshmen are doing well. Camilla Rosen is coming off of knee injury that kept her off the court as a senior last year. Christina Fletcher from Illinois is a 6-1 post whose athleticism has come as a pleasant surprise.

International Aggies

With the Aggies adding a pair of international players this week that join walk on Makhtar Diop from Senegal, Canadians Hernst Laroche and Tyrone Watson, I just wanted to see what you think of going elsewhere for talent?
Menzies has a good point that at a school like NMSU, you have to think outside the box and apparently outside the country. Menzies replaced South African Chris Gabriel with N'Doye from Senegal. Menzies has been doing this a long time and I believe if I'm not mistaken that N'Doye, as well as Gillenwater and Sy all have ties to Stoneridge Prep. Stoneridge has a long history of churning out international players to the Division I level.

I don't know how these players turn out to be on the court, but one thing is for certain. The Aggies will be the most diverse club in the WAC this year, as well as one of the biggest in terms of size.

Schedule

Now that the official schedule has been released, here is a thread to voice your thoughts. I thought numerous posters on an old thread made some good points but the schedule didn't receive too many good reviews. Certainly the home portion figures to be a little on the light side, but as RM noted in a previous post, it's not that much different than past schedules. I can't even say it's a whole lot different than the two years that I have covered the team. Pepperdine wasn't very good last year at all and the Aggies made North Texas look like the Dallas Mavs two years ago in two non-conference home games that come to mind.

How many wins do you see? I'll make my prediction closer to the season when the personnel matters are more crystal clear, but UCLA, four rivalry games, Saint Mary's, on the road at Pepperdine...I like the early schedule for this particular group.

Back to school

The Aggies started their groups of four workouts as school started last week. Some of the players who head coach Marvin Menzies said have stood out are sophomore point guard Hernst Laroche, junior guard Gordo Castillo, reshirt junior Robert Lumpkins and redshirt sophomore center Hamidu Rahman and forward Tyrone Watson.
"Some of the guys stayed around and concentrated on building chemistry and working with (strength and conditioning coach) Tyler Cummings)," Menzies said.