Saturday, January 15, 2011

San Jose State game

Hamidu Rahman is expected to start tonight. I would like to Rahman start to take some strides to regain his form from a year ago. Marvin Menzies also indicated that the Aggies could look to a lineup down the road that includes Chili Nephawe and Rahman on the floor together.

I asked Menzies if Rahman's head was alright since he has been out of the starting lineup and battling injuries all year.

"I think he's a little frustrated that he's not 100 percent but he is getting there," Menzies said. "I'm looking forward to him playing well tomorrow because he didn't play a boatload of minutes against Hawaii."

Without Adrian Oliver, who is not expected to play tonight, 5-11 freshman guard Keith Shamburger could be a player to watch. Shamburger scored all 21 of his points at La Tech in the second half, hitting 2 3s. Senior Justin Graham also made two triples, but without Oliver or a Robert Owen like last year, the Spartans don't seem to present that threat of a perimeter scorer. Another candidate is 6-3 JC transfer Calvin Douglas, one of four JC players.

The Aggies should have a big advantage in the paint against this team, who starts 6-7 and 6-8 and like Menzies said the other day, the Spartans don't have much depth, so if NMSU can continue to get the opposing team in foul trouble, we could see another lopsided result in NMSU's favor.

I thought that it was good for the Aggies to blow out an inferior opponent like Hawaii. They didn't play down to their competition. It would be nice to see the same kind of game tonight since without Oliver, I don't see much in the San JOse roster.

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