Written by: Parsing The WAC/Special to bleedCrimson.net

The two expected-to-be WAC behemoths, Utah State and New Mexico State, are stumbling a bit in the early going -- or picking an alternative description -- not running roughshod over the competition.

This wasn't supposed to be happening as Utah State Coach Stew Morrill has amply demonstrated the knack of plugging in new players without missing a beat and Coach Marvin Menzies inherited a talented squad in Las Cruces.

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We spoke very briefly with Aggie volleyball coach Mike Jordan last night and asked about Krista Altermatt's injury, we're happy (as we sure he is) to report that it is only a very bad ankle sprain. Her status for the NCAA tournament is unknown at this point but that is very good news because it looked like it could have been much worse.

Last night the Aggie basketball team picked up their second win of the year, defeating the LeMoyne-Owen Magicians 100-64. It's always nice to win. This was our first opportunity to see the Aggies in person and we were quite impressed with Wendell McKines.

What we liked: Wendell McKines. What more can you say, the kid is a beast. He certainly isn't the biggest guy on the floor but he definitely plays full throttle and knows how to clean up around the basket. We are pleased that the Aggies continue to show improvement on the offensive end. For the second straight game they looked much more patient on the offensive end, running the break effectively as well and setting up their offensive plays. Jonathan Gibson continues to impress us, in the four games this season he has shown marked improvement in each game. He seems to understand much better this season his range and shot selection. A huge plus for the Aggies. The Aggies did a much better job of taking care of the ball as well, they only had 14 turnovers.

What we didn't like: There wasn't a whole lot not to like. The Aggies did have some trouble grabbing rebounds at times, allowing LeMoyne-Owen to get a few offensive rebounds on a single possession. Free throw shooting is still not great (16-34 on the night) but honestly, that's never been a strong suit (at least not since we any season we've been Aggies fans) although, it will need to be better than 47%.

The Aggies will take on Texas in the semifinal round of the Legends Classic on Friday at 3:00 p.m. MST. The game will be televised on Versus.

Tomorrow night the Aggie women's basketball team will take on the Kent State Golden Flashes in their home opener. The tip-off is scheduled for 7:00. It'll be interesting to see how the Aggies do after their 10 day layoff.

Be sure to check out Jordan Bostic's latest entry in her Aggie Volleyball Diary.

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Before we get started, we'd like to wish Krista Altermatt of the Aggie volleyball team a speedy recovery. Krista injured her right leg during game five of last night's championship match against Hawai'i. The paramedics and athletic training staff placed Krista's leg in an air cast and she and had to be taken off the court on a stretcher and is undoubtedly done for the season.

Yesterday was not a good to be an Aggie as both teams that were in action, football and volleyball, both tasted defeat. The Aggie football team fell to previously winless Utah State 35-17. Utah State scored a touchdown with under a minute left to make the final margin of victory a little wider. When you've lost 16 games in a row that's to be expected. Both Aggie defenses came into the game having taken their shots in the press all of this past week but for the most part, this was a defensive struggle by WAC standards. The score at halftime was 10-7 in favor of NMSU.

Turnovers again played a big key in the game. Chase Holbrook was picked off twice, both times off of tipped passes, which is a recurring theme this season. One pass was a little high and hit off the receiver's hands and right into a Utah State defender's hands. The other interception came on a shovel pass deep on the NMSU side of the field. Ironically, shovel passes are considered to be very safe plays but this was one of the one in a million times that it didn't turn out that way. The defense did a good job of not allowing Utah State to convert any points off those turnovers but they killed two Aggie drives.

It was obvious that the Aggie offense missed Derek Dubois and Tonny Glynn a lot. Tonny and Derek are both guys that can turn the short pass/run play into a quick six points. Along with Chris Williams who has the ability to do the same thing, the Aggie offense just isn't the same.

The big momentum killer however was the kickoff return for a touchdown by Utah State. The Aggies had just gone down and scored a touchdown and kicked off to Utah State who promptly ran the ball back for a touchdown. NMSU had done a fairly good job of defending the kickoff returns as USU had started with an average field position on their own 34 yard line on the previous three kickoffs. Unfortunately the let one get away and it cost them dearly.

There was one other big play in the game and that was a Utah State fumble that was overturned. That would have given NMSU excellent field position.

The Aggies finally have a much needed bye week this weekend and will take on Fresno State on Friday, November 30th on ESPN at 6:00 p.m.

As for the Aggie volleyball team, last night's loss was tough. They won games one and three two take a 2-1 lead and started off game four on fire but Hawai'i came back won four to tie the match at 2-2. The Aggies were unable to gain any momentum in the deciding game five, playing catch-up the whole game and then Krista Altermatt's injury really took the wind out of the Aggies' sails. As a fan it was a tough situation to watch, as a player we're sure it was even harder. The injury is tough loss for the Aggies as she was one of their consistent producers this season. Losing her right before the NCAA tournament difficult. In regards to the NCAA tournament, the Aggies will find out their fate next Sunday. As we mentioned before, we believe that NMSU is a lock to go to the NCAA tournament. They played a tough non-conference schedule, all five of their losses were to ranked opponents (#6 Texas, at then #1 Nebraska and Hawai'i three times, twice in five game thrillers).

If you weren't at the volleyball match last night, you really missed out on a great, great atmosphere. Coach Jordan has built a great program and they really deserve your support. As we often mention to anyone who will listen to us, Coach Jordan's volleyball team in our opinion has been the flagship program for the school for the past six or seven years and has certainly been the most consistent.

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It's Aggies vs. Aggies for the second time this week as the NMSU football team takes on Utah State at noon at Aggie Memorial Stadium. NMSU is looking to prolong Utah State's misery, a 16 game losing streak, while hoping to end a mini-losing streak of their own. Despite being eliminated from bowl eligibility last week against San Jose State, the Aggies can still finish the season with six wins. As coach Mumme told us in our weekly interview with him, that goal must start today by getting win number five. Considering the injuries on both sides of the ball to key starters, six wins would be a considerable achievement in our eyes.

NMSU will look to ground the option attack of Utah State today by trying to contain another dual-threat quarterback in Leon Jackson. Jackson leads the Aggies in rushing with almost 450 yards. The Aggies will also try to kick away from Utah State's talented return specialist Preston Robinson. Despite what others have said and written about the Aggie kickoff coverage this season, the Aggies are 7th in the country in kickoff return defense and have yet to give up a return for a touchdown, although both UTEP and Idaho came close in their games against NMSU.

After the showdown on the gridiron, the Aggie volleyball team will take the court against Hawai'i in a rematch of last year's WAC Tournament championship match. Both the Aggies and Wahine swept their semifinal matches last night to set up the third meeting of the season. Hawai'i won the first match in Las Cruces in a five game thriller, overcoming several Aggie match points to pull out the victory. In the regular season rematch between the two in Honolulu, the Wahine surprised everyone, including their own faithful with a sweep.

As our tournament correspondent and , "we need EVERY SINGLE AGGIE FAN in Las Cruces at this game". We could not agree more with Mel. This is a crucial opportunity for NMSU. Sure, the Aggies are bound for the NCAA Tournament regardless of the outcome of tonight's match, but this is about getting a better seed in the NCAA Tournament, which means a better chance at advancing to later rounds. But more importantly, this is about PRIDE and about defending our turf. It's not often that you get a golden opportunity to host a championship on our home court but the Aggies have that advantage and in order to take advantage of that opportunity, we need all the fans who support the Aggies to come out tonight. The match starts at 7:00 p.m. so get there early and show the Aggies your support!

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Here's a very quick afternoon update for you. Don't forget to head to the Pan American Center tonight to support the Aggies as they take on San Jose State in the semifinals of the WAC Volleyball Tournament.

The Associated Press previews tomorrow's game between "the injured Aggies" and the "winless Aggies". (thanks Roberto)

Brian McDonald of CollegeFantasyFootballInsider.com says to start Chase Holbrook on your fantasy team. (thanks Roberto)

Sammy Hislop of the Utah Statesman writes that the Utah State Aggies are just trying to salvage the season. (thanks Roberto)

The NMSU athletic website previews tonight's semifinal match between #2 seed NMSU and #6 seed San Jose State.

It's an action packed weekend in Aggie Country. Tonight is the semifinal round of the WAC Volleyball Tournament. Be sure to check out our volleyball expert Mel's recap of yesterday's exciting action. As she mentioned in her blog, San Jose State pulled off the upset of the tournament so far by knocking off #3 seed Utah State on the Aggies' side of the bracket. This is big because Utah State was coming off the biggest win of the WAC season as they had defeated #10 Hawai'i in Honolulu, in a sweep. No doubt had Utah State been able to advance to meet NMSU, they would have been looking to notch their second big upset in less than a week. But it was not to be for the other Aggies. Our Aggies will take on San Jose State in a 2 vs. 6 matchup tonight at 7:30 p.m. or thereabouts, depending on the length of the first semifinal matchup. The first semifinal matchup will be between top seed Hawai'i, winners in a sweep over Boise State, versus Nevada, who defeated Idaho 3-1.

Tomorrow at high noon, the Aggie football team takes on Utah State at Aggie Memorial Stadium. This is an important game for both teams. NMSU (4-7) is trying to snap a three game skid (Hawai'i, Nevada, SJSU) and Utah State (0-10) is trying to stop a 16-game losing streak dating back to last season. If you recall, last season NMSU went to Logan and ended their losing streak to Division I opponents which (we believe was 19 games) and dated back to the 2004 season (Tony Samuel's last game) which also happened to be in Logan. We're sure that Utah State would like to return the favor tomorrow afternoon. If you haven't checked out this week's interview with Coach Mumme, be sure to do so. Utah State runs the option and the Aggies have had a lot of difficulty containing mobile quarterbacks (see Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Idaho, Nevada). NMSU has been decimated by injuries on both sides of the ball, but particularly on offense. The Aggies have been without A.J. Harris, Derek Dubois, Chris Williams, Tonny Glynn, Justine Buries, Nick Cleaver and Chase Holbrook at various times throughout the season and Chris Williams (shoulder), Derek Dubois (knee) and Tonny Glynn (ankle) are all done for the season. Despite being 0-10, Utah State has been competitive in most of their games. It will likely be a fairly close game (too close for comfort for most crimson-clad Aggie fans).

On Sunday night, the Aggies will conclude the regional action in the Legends Classic when they take on LeMoyne-Owen. We confess that we don't know much about LeMoyne-Owen (in fact, we didn't know there was a LeMoyne-Owen until the bracket came out earlier this fall). The Aggies showed improvement in their win over UC-Davis on Wednesday night and we expect the same on Sunday. The Aggies should win by 20+ points.

Before we get into the links we'd like to congratulate our friend and reader Dan who is taking the plunge today and joining us in the ranks of the married. Congratulations sir!

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Tonight Last night the Aggies defeated the Aggies from UC-Davis by a score of 75-65. At first glance the score doesn't look all that impressive but if you were able to watch the game, you know that NMSU led comfortably throughout. This year's team, just like last year's team must learn to keep their foots on the gas pedal when they've got a team, especially an underdog team like UC-Davis, on the ropes.

What we liked: First and foremost we liked the outcome. A win is a win and after opening the season with two losses, it feels good to get on the winning side of things. We love love love Wendell McKines (pronounced like Guiness with a Mc and 'K' instead of a 'G'). This kid has a really soft tough and isn't afraid to be inside. One scouting service, Scouts Inc. compared him to Shawn Marion of the Phoenix Suns. While we haven't seen a lot of Shawn Marion, we do know he's a phenomenal player, so any time one of our guys is compared to an NBA guy, we'll take it. We like the fact that Jonathan Gibson had much better shot selection last night. He also drove to the basket a couple times which, with his speed, is something he should be trying to do more often. Either to shoot or to pass back out to an open man when the defense collapses. We also like the patience on offense the Aggies showed last night. There were much fewer bad shots, decision made than in the previous two games. The Aggies were much more under control running their break and if the break wasn't there they wisely pulled the ball back out and ran offense. When this team is patient, they have the players to get any shot they want and for the most part last night that was the case. The offense also seemed to run more smoothly with Jonathan Gibson or Paris Carter running the point.

What we didn't like: Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. NMSU had 22, UC-Davis only had 14. At least three of those turnovers were because one of the NMSU players stepped on the out of bounds line, either on the sideline or under the basket. Against a team like UC-Davis who wasn't pressuring a whole lot, 22 turnovers is a lot of turnovers. We also don't like that Hatila Passos is held the ball so long when he was passed to in the post. At least five time Hatila got the ball down low and just held it for four or five seconds while UC-Davis collapsed with a double team. When Hatila gets the ball down there and the team collapses on defense, he needs to be looking around and get that ball back out, to an open man, or shoot it. That's his purpose, draw the defense down so that he can pound it inside or kick it back out to an open man (when you're double teamed, there's gonna be an open man somewhere, right?).

A couple of other random observations, production out of Martin Iti and Hatila Passos is virtually non-existent right now. We're not sure why but it is. Chris Cole doesn't look comfortable running the point just yet. He's still only a sophomore and didn't play at all last season after transferring in from Hartford so it's probably going to take him a few more games to get acclimated.

All in all, it wasn't the Aggies' best game but it was a marked improvement over the first two, especially in the outcome 'W' vs. 'L'.

Now, onto the pressing item of the day. The WAC Volleyball tournament. Our volleyball expert Mel is going to be at the games today and has promised to try to squeeze in some updates. This is a golden opportunity, just as it was for the men's and women's hoops teams, to win the tournament and secure an automatic bid to the NCAA volleyball tournament. Obviously we believe the Aggies are a lock no matter what so winning the tournament will go a long way to improving their seed and getting a favorable first round matchup.

The Aggies will take on Fresno State tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the 2 vs. 7 seed matchup.

Also, congratulations to the team as they placed a whopping six players on the All-WAC teams, the most out of any school (yes, even including perennial power Hawai'i).

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Just a quick reminder for everyone that tonight's game against UC-Davis will be available on AggieVision in the AggieVision viewing area. Also, the Lady Aggie Volleyball Tailgaters, led by our very own volleyball expert Mel, have their own website. Check it out at www.ladyaggietailgaters.com.

Here are a few links to get you through the afternoon and up to game time.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Tonight the Aggie men's basketball team returns home to take on UC-Davis in the regional matchup of the Legends Classic Tournament. This tournament isn't like a traditional tournament where the winners advance and the losers go home. The semifinals for this tournament were predetermined with the host schools, NMSU, Texas, Tennessee and West Virginia all meeting next week in New Jersey to battle for the crown. This is the way for the tournament organizers to guarantee they have a big draw for their tournament (which we believe this year is the inaugural year) from local fans in the New Jersey/New York area as well as makes it easy for each teams' fans to plan for a trip. Just ask Kentucky fans who thought they were going to Madison Square Garden and then got knocked off by Gardner Webb or even Gardner Webb's athletic department who had no idea they'd be headed to New York and had to scramble to rearrange their schedules.

So, win or lose tonight and win or lose on Sunday night, the Aggies will be headed to the semifinals of the Legends Classic. Now, that being said, it would be very bad if the Aggies were to lose tonight and it would be even worse were they to lose Sunday night to LeMoyne-Owen. Pop quiz Aggie fans, where is LeMoyne-Owen? We'll let you know before we get to the links... you'll probably be surprised.

Back to tonight's game. UC-Davis just finished it's probationary period for jumping to Division I. They're a full fledged member of Division I basketball now and their coach Gary Stewart has high hopes for his team. He told our friends at Blue Ribbon Yearbook ''I'm about championships." While you might think Stewart is a little crazy, he's got experience. He's been an assistant coach at Washington State and UCLA and has a history of building teams from scratch.

For the Aggies to come away with a win tonight, they'll need to defend every man on the team. Stewart runs a very unconventional offense where any person on the floor could be playing the point.

Our friends at Blue Ribbon Yearbook tell us if the Aggies have a height advantage at any position, they can clear out and post the bigger man on the smaller one. Often, Stewart said, they will go to what he calls ''five out,'' with five players outside and no post presence.

''It's hard to explain, but it's just not a cookie-cutter system,'' he said. ''It's not what you're used to. It's almost like when a football team empties the backfield and goes with five receivers. That's a different concept than normal. Well, this is a different concept.

''The best visual I can give you for the initiator is, think of Phil Jackson's teams, where Ron Harper played the point. People don't think of Ron Harper as a traditional point guard. Our initiator could be a kid who might play power forward for somebody else.''

There are several matchups of interest tonight but the biggest one will be in the post. UC-Davis has a 7'2" center by the name of Michael Boone. This will be one of the few times that Martin Iti steps on the floor as the shorter guy in the post.

The Aggies will also need to contain Shane Hanson. Hanson averaged less than five points a game in his freshman year last year but had a coming out party in Davis' opener against La Verne scoring 24 points in 28 minutes on 8-12 shooting. That's some serious production.

We look for our Aggies to come out with some fire and build an early lead. The Aggies will undoubtedly want to get the taste of Monday night's defeat out of their collective mouths.

If you missed it yesterday, don't forget to check out this week's interview with Coach Mumme.

And definitely check out this week's interview with Coach Spence who had praise for his two seniors, Sherrell Neal and Anikia Jawara after their outstanding performance this past Friday against UC-Irvine.

Now before we get into the links, we promised we'd tell you where LeMoyne-Owen College was located... Are you ready? It's located in Memphis, Tennessee. LeMoyne-Owens' website says it's "a private, historically black liberal arts institution, distinguished by diverse faculty, rigorous academic programs, and success in preparing students for professional careers, leadership, and service in the local and global community." Now you know a little bit about LeMoyne-Owen.

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It's mid-afternoon here in Aggie Country and like most you we're just trying to make the time pass until the 5:00 whistle blows so here are a few links to get your afternoon moving along a tiny bit faster but before we do, here's what our friends over at Parsing The WAC had to say about last night's game.

The Duke-New Mexico State game was over pretty quickly although we missed the first half due to thinking and reading the game was going to start at five o'clock. As we tuned in, the halftime score was 47-26 (the final score was 86-61).

The Dookies seem re-energized, both much faster and a better outside-shooting team than last year. Being undersized proved to be no problem for Coach K's squad.

But we're still a bit surprised that the Aggie center tandem of Martin Iti and Hattila Passos were negligible factors in the game.

The foremost factor in the Aggie downfall was a lack of offensive consistency. The NMSU offense play was in sputter mode, looking solid one moment but followed by a number of possessions out of sync. This often led to Blue Devil steals and breakaways.

Stalwart Justin Hawkins scored 16 and added 11 rebounds to earn a double-double for NMSU. He just may give Utah State backcourter Jaycee Carroll some competition for WAC most valuable player. Fred Peete was more off than on.

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