NMSU wins Aggie bowl
The USU men’s basketball team struggled mightily against New Mexico State on Saturday, eventually falling 80-69.
USU held a small lead and had several chances to expand on a lead late in the game, but Western Athletic Conference foe New Mexico State turned up the pressure. NMSU finished the game on a 14-3 run to capture an 80-69 win at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on national television.
“That was a tough one,” USU sophomore guard Danny Berger said. “We couldn’t get it done. We just didn’t do what it takes. We didn’t take care of the ball. We didn’t execute like we should. That’s what happens when we don’t do those things.”
Senior forward Wendell McKines scored 20 points and pulled down nine rebounds to lead New Mexico State (18-8, 7-3 WAC).
“Wendell got his average,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “He hit some big shots to keep them in the game when we were making a move. He jumped up and made some 3’s — he doesn’t make a lot of 3’s.”
Senior guard Hernst Laroche finished with 16 points and seven assists, and Morrill said he and McKines produced well for NMSU.
“I thought Hernst was great,” Morrill said. “He just controlled the game. He got over our screens every time we tried to screen him. They had great production out of those two seniors.”
Because of New Mexico State’s size and athleticism, rebounding was a great concern for USU (13-13, 5-6 WAC), and the southern Aggies finished the game with a 34-21 rebounding advantage.
“They dominated us on the boards,” Morrill said. “They had a really good shooting night when you look at what they normally shoot from (the 3-point line). They made a lot of shots that they normally don’t make. We were giving them a lot of those shots in our gameplan, and they responded and made them.”
Despite the rebounding problems, USU had its chances to take a small lead and build it late in the second half.
“We were up by a point and got outscored 15-3,” Morrill said. “We turned it over, took bad shots — that is ultimately my responsibility. They turned up the heat a little bit with their athleticism, and we couldn’t get anything done. They made the plays that they needed to make, and we couldn’t even run our offense.”
Forward Kyisean Reed finished with 11 points and four rebounds. The senior put USU up 66-65 on a free throw with six minutes remaining, and the northern Aggies scored three more points over the final minutes of the game.
USU shot a high percentage from the 3-point line, hitting 10 of 20 attempts and shooting 50 percent from the field overall, but USU struggled from the free-throw line hitting 7 of 13.
“It’s just kind of an adventure at the line with some of those guys,” Morrill said. “They’ve got to believe they can do it. When the game is on the line, when you are on the free-throw line, you’ve got to have enough confidence that you can do what it takes, and we don’t seem to have that.”
New Mexico State’s Tshilidzi Nephawe tied the game at 66-all on a free throw with 5:34 remaining, and USU followed that with ill-advised shots on back-to-back possessions.
“We get to the end of the game, and we just can’t finish it,” sophomore guard Preston Medlin said. “It’s something we need to work on. We need to cut down turnovers at the end of the game, and we need to take better shots.”
Medlin said NMSU’s defense gave his team problems.
“They turned up the pressure,” the sophomore said. “And it gave us a lot of turnovers at the end of the game that we didn’t need, and it turned into some bad shots we didn’t need to take.”
Just as it did at the end of the first half, New Mexico State ended the second half on an offensive spurt. Freshman guard Daniel Mullings began the run with a layup and several USU turnovers, which led to several fast-break points that fueled the final run.
The Aggies will next face Montana Tech on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Spectrum.
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu