The New Mexico State Aggie men's and women's basketball teams both picked up impressive and important victories yesterday. The Aggie women rallied from a 10-point second half deficit to beat Boise State and pick up their first series sweep of Boise State. Danisha Corbett was lights out in the second half knocking down four three point attempts. The Aggies were able to hold the Broncos' leading scorer Jessica Van Hoogen to just seven points. "We were in her face, we didn't allow her to become comfortable."
Tasha Harris scored 17 points for Boise State and Melissa Rima scored 24 points, well above her season average and most of the damage for her was done from the free throw line as she shot a whopping 19 free throws and hit 16 of them. Her 19 free throw attempts were two fewer than the Aggies shot as a team. In the end it was the Aggies who came out victorious. The Aggie defense was also strong in the second half. After allowing the Broncos to shoot 48.1 percent in the first half, the Aggie defense locked down the Broncos holding them to 31.6 percent shooting. It's been a continuing trend over the past two seasons and nearly always holds true, when the Aggies hold an opponent under 40 percent shooting, they win.
The Aggie offense shot 40.5 percent in the first half and then upped their efficiency to shoot 53.6 in the second half. The Aggies made 15 shots in each half but took seven fewer shots in the second half. As was expected it was a back and forth battle with seven ties and 16 lead changes. The Aggie bench outscored Boise State's bench 27-11, most of those 27 points came from Danisha Corbett who has come off the bench in each of the last two games and provided a scoring spark for the Aggies. Corbett had started nearly every game the past two seasons but Camila Rosen has moved into the starting spot the past two games and has done quite well. "I think this change frees her up a little bit. Of course it's hard for her to fully understand that. That's the best thing for our team right now. She stepped and hit some big shots for us. I'm really pleased with her, I'm proud of her. It's really hard for her, I know that. It's hard for anybody." Coach Spence has mentioned it to us before in our weekly interviews, the players need to understand that who starts the game is not as important as who finished the game. As a player, if you're in the game down the stretch in crunch time, that's far more important than if you're in the game when the score is 0-0. So far Corbett's move from the starting lineup to becoming the first person off the bench has given the Aggies a nice midseason spark.
The Aggie men also picked up an impressive victory last night over a very game San Jose State squad. The Spartans took an early lead on the Aggies and led 12-8. However, the Aggies answered with a run and after taking a 14-12 lead on a pair of Jahmar Young free throws, the Aggies would not trail the rest of the game. The Aggies held 10 point leads in both the first half and second half but to San Jose's credit the Spartans fought back to within one point both times and in the second half they simply ran out of gas, much like the Aggies ran out of gas in the first meeting between the two teams.
The Aggies and Spartans were lights out from behind the three point arc as the Spartans were 11-of-23 and the Aggies were 10-of-20. Troy Gillenwater made his season debut and it looked like he had been playing the entire season. Everyone will point to the 19 points and 11 rebounds that he had but the two most impressive plays he made in the game were the two early fouls he elicited on San Jose State's big men, one on the offensive end and one on the defensive end. With no disrespect to Wendell McKines, we have to give the edge to Troy in terms of season debuts. Wendell McKines had eight points, 10 rebounds and five assists in his season debut but his also came against Alcorn State while Troy scored 19 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and did it against a much more formidable interior of Chris Oakes and C.J. Webster.
With the midseason and late season additions of Wendell McKines and Troy Gillenwater, the Aggies are now at full strength and we cannot think of another instance in which a team got a boost at two separate times from two All-Conference caliber players late in the season. The Aggies are now 7-2 in conference play, tied with Louisiana Tech for 2nd place. The winner of Monday night's game will move into a tie with Utah State for first place.
We're having some connectivity issues here in the airport so we won't be posting links today
