Establish the paint: The Aggies were obviously able to do this with a career high 22 points on 10 of 14 shooting with eight rebounds against Seattle. Renaldo Dixon was also involved with 11 points. NMSU made 5 3s, 4 in the first half, but only as a result of wide open shots either from big men kick outs (Sim Bhullar had four assists) or in transition. NMSU didn't settle for the 3. For some reason, Seattle did not play zone, and they did not pressure until NMSU was already off to a 71 percent start from the field. NMSU's 16 assists showed that the Aggies picked them apart.
Rebounding: I don't think it's any coincidence that the Aggies playing man to man for most of the game led to out rebounding the WACs best rebounding team by 2, two days after playing zone and letting Idaho out rebound them by the same margin. Seattle still had 16 offensive rebounds, but NMSU collected 12 offensive boards.
Turnovers: I didn't think Seattle would match their high turnover game at Las Cruces in their own gym and they didn't with 14. The Aggies did a good job in the first half, but still committed some bad ones in the second half. KC Ross Miller moved to inbound the ball for the Aggies against the press with Daniel Mullings and DK Eldridge (combined 11 turnovers) in the backcourt, all three decent ball handlers, while prior to the weekend, it was normally the four position who inbounds.
2 comments:
Do you ever get the feeling we have reached the ceiling with Menzies as coach?
SMU is now nationally ranked after being sanctioned for several years by the NCAA. How? You beat nationally ranked teams and you win consistently. Of course having a coach like Larry Brown would help too. All far fetched for us here in Aggieland until we stop settling for good and go for great.
Paul
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