Sunday, January 5, 2014

Grand Canyon: Three keys unlocked

New Mexcio State was dominant as expected against what is essentially a DII team, beating Grand Canyon to open WAC play and doing without Sim Bhullar, who head coach Marvin Menzies said was left behind to rest with a "minor"  foot injury.

Let me ask you a question. How many games should NMSU win by double figures in conference play? I'm going to go with 12. Onto the keys

Rebound: NMSU out rebounded Grand Canyon 39-20 and the WAC's leading rebounder, Killian Larson, had four points and three rebounds after 26 and 12 against Texas Pan Am, well below his 11 rebounds per game. Grand Canyon had just four offensive rebounds.

Get the ball inside: The 3-ball was working for the Aggies on Saturday as NMSU hit 9 of 19 with Kevin Aronis hitting 6 of 8. Chili Nephawe (9 points, 11 rebounds) and Renaldo Dixon (8 points, 6 rebounds) were just a security blanket for the Aggies against a much smaller team that didn't seem ready for the physicality at times.

Limit 3s/TOs: Grand Canyon was just 4 of 13 from 3 point range. After making 14 3s in the previous game against Texas Pan Am, Menzies said guarding the 3 was a point of emphasis, as it will be every night since the 3 point line is really the only hope a lot of these teams have of keeping games close. NMSU only had 11 turnovers, down from their average of 13.7 per game

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like what DK Eldridge has been doing. Solid defender, decent scorer, and is also turning out to be a big time rebounder at the guard position. His name doesn't get mentioned much but I think he is a major part of the Aggies balance on both ends of the court. Solid JUCO recruiting by MM.

-DB