AGGIES CLINCH TOP SEED WITH VICTORY
New Mexico State assured itself of a share of the Western Athletic Conference regular season title and the No. 1 seed in next month’s league tournament.
LAS CRUCES — New Mexico State clinched the No. 1 overall seed in the Western Athletic Conference tournament and a share of the regular-season title after its 88-79 victory over UT Rio Grande Valley Saturday evening in the Pan American Center.
Saturday’s win secured for New Mexico State the top-seed in next month’s conference tournament for the second-consecutive season and fourth time in five years.
“I thought the guys were really ready to play,” Aggies head coach Chris Jans said. “We came out of the gates great. That’s how we envisioned them playing. It was nice to see. In the middle of the first half, I turned to my staff and said, ‘it feels like we should be up more than six because I thought we were playing well.’ They just kept hanging around. Obviously the second half didn’t start off great and then finally we were able to get some separation and close them out.”
The Aggies (24-4, 12-1 WAC) got off to one of their better starts of
the year offensively, shooting 58.3-percent (7-of-12) at the 11:40 media break to lead the visiting Vaqueros 19-11. As well as the Aggies were shooting, so were the Vaqueros (16-14, 7-6 WAC), who were hitting 60 percent (12of-20) of their field goal attempts at the 3:24 mark.
However, early foul trouble for the visitors and 3-point differential in the first half helped NMSU hold a 45-32 lead at halftime.
During that final 3:24 minutes, the Aggie faithful were given a couple opportunities to get boisterous behind dunks from Johnny McCants and Trevelin Queen.
UTRGV got out of the gates in the second half with a 6-0 start to get within 45-38 before NMSU responded with an 8-0 run of its own to lead 53-38 at the 15:27 media break.
That run extended to a 19-6 advantage through the 11:23 media break and capped off with back-to-back free-throws from Ivan Aurrecoechea, which gave New Mexico State the 64-46 lead.
With 6:31 on clock, Queen made a great entry pass to Eli Chuha from the far side for his 1,000th career point. Chuha became the 35th player to join the 1,000 point club and the 17th player to have 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in his Aggie career.