Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Back in the early 1970s, country musician Jerry Reed put pen to paper and came up with a ditty entitled, When You're Hot, You're Hot. The hit single served as Reed's account of a dice game (and the events that transpired as a result of it) in a back alley with two of his closest friends - a game in which Reed couldn't stop rollin' sevens and winning.

Incredulous at the luck of Reed, his pals simply threw up their hands and said, "when you're hot, you're hot," resigning themselves to the fact that it just wasn't their day.   Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

BAKERSFIELD, CA - The last time the NM State men's basketball team set foot inside the Icardo Center, it took nothing short of a miracle for it to exit with a victory.

Saturday night, in the final WAC tilt to be played inside the facility, nobody needed to play the role of hero for the Aggies. Their defensive effort made sure of that.

Johnny McCants piled up 14 points, Terrell Brown added 12 more and the Aggies showed off just how potent one of the nation's best scoring defenses can by when operating at peak efficiency by holding CSU Bakersfield to its lowest scoring output in two years during a 62-46 suffocation of the Roadrunners.

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

PHOENIX, AZ - They say it's not how you start, but how you finish.

"They" didn't catch the Aggies in action Thursday night at the GCU Arena.

In what was perhaps their best start to a game this season, the Aggies came out firing and hit Grand Canyon with a 10-0 run to start the game and by hammering the Lopes both on the glass and on the scoreboard exited GCU Arena with a 67-53 victory.

The Lopes never led and though they managed to whittle the Aggies' lead down to three points on one occasion that was as close as they could get.

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• Intent on shutting down whatever advantage the Lopes crowd could give, the Aggies wasted no time in landing their first haymaker of the night. Fueled by the speed of Evan Gilyard II who scored the first six of the game, NM State put in the game's first 10 points over a span of 3:45.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Death. Texas. NM State winning WAC titles.

Those have been life's certainties in Las Cruces in recent memory and it was still the case Saturday night.

On pace to score just 40 points midway through the opening stanza, the rv/— Aggies finally managed to shake off their exceptionally slow start on offense by using an 11-0 run to take the lead for good and NM State hoisted its third WAC regular season championship trophy in as many seasons with a 78-62 come-from-behind triumph over UTRGV.

Jabari Rice came through with a team-high 20 points and Terrell Brown added 18 more off the bench for the Aggies who now own the nation's longest active winning streak at 16 games.

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - The only thought running through Jabari Rice's mind over the course of the final 6.5 seconds Saturday evening was his last shot against New Mexico back on Nov. 21, 2019.

A three-pointer that rimmed out at the end. One that would have given the Aggies a win over their biggest rivals.

Given another chance in a similar situation nearly three months later, Rice knew failure wasn't an option a second time.

Playing in front of the team that put New Mexico State on the map a half-century ago with its run to the Final Four, Rice banked home a game-winning three-pointer with 0.6 seconds to go to cap a wild 84-82 come-from-behind victory for the Aggies over WAC foe Utah Valley inside the Pan Am Center.   Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - By his own admission, junior forward Johnny McCants had been dealing with some difficulty getting off to a good start as of late for the New Mexico State men's basketball team.

Thursday night inside the Pan Am Center, McCants started well and never let up. That spelled trouble for Seattle U.

In one of the most dominant nights of his collegiate career, McCants generated a team-high 14 points and completed a monstrous double-double effort by hauling in a career-high 18 rebounds to help lead the Aggies to a scrappy 72-64 victory over the Redhawks.

With the win NM State hit the 20-win mark for the ninth-consecutive season and maintained a three-game lead for the top spot in the WAC standings with five regular season games to go.

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

KANSAS CITY, MO - Beset by more bad news on the injury front when it learned in late Janaury leading scorer Trevelin Queen was to miss two weeks with a knee injury, the New Mexico State men's basketball team has done one thing on a consistent basis: pound the ball inside.

Because it's there that senior Ivan Aurrecoechea does his best work and over the last five games he has gone from a run-of-the-mill Spaniard to the WAC's most feared conquistador.

The Spaniard sparkled once again, matching his career with with 23 points, helped the Aggies build up a 16-point second half lead and NM State held off a hard charge by Kansas City in the game's final 3:10 to claim a 67-61 triumph over the Roos Saturday night in the Swinney Recreation Center.

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

CHICAGO, IL - On paper it looked like it would result in a blowout from start to finish.

Early on it didn't quite work out that way for the New Mexico State men's basketball team Thursday night in the Windy City. That is until one of Chicago's favorite sons - playing in front of nearly 100 family members who made the journey to the Jones Convocation Center - stepped to the forefront of the action to make sure no doubts remain on what team remained the favorites in the WAC.

Playing in his home town for the first time in his collegiate career, Evan Gilyard II sparked a 20-4 New Mexico State run over that last 7:24 of the opening half by scoring seven-straight points and the Aggies rode that surge to a 71-49 triumph over Chicago State.

A fifth-straight road victory helped the Aggies maintain a two-game lead for the top spot in the WAC standings.

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - It's a well-known fact that the last time Grand Canyon stepped foot inside the Pan Am Center, it took a miracle for New Mexico State to get by their biggest WAC rivals.

The only thing miraculous about the latest showdown between the Aggies and Lopes on the was the fact that the former only won by 20.

Johnny McCants submitted the first double-double of his career by finishing with 17 points on a perfect 7-of-7 night from the field and grabbing 12 rebounds, Jabari Rice put in a game-high 18, and the Aggies continued their all-time dominance over Grand Canyon by blasting the Lopes, 72-52, in front of the second-largest crowd to ever witness a men's basketball game inside the Pan Am Center.

At no point throughout the rout did the Lopes present any sort of threat and bolstered 13,960 of their most voracious backers, the WAC leaders pushed their winning streak to 11 games.   Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - It's no secret that the NM State men's basketball team has made use of an exceptionally potent shooting touch to fuel its latest winning streak.

What hasn't exactly received as much press is the Aggies' defense - something that was as the center of them generating a 10th-consecutive win.

Clinging to a one-point lead with 1:35 to go, senior Shunn Buchanan came up with a game-changing steal on the defensive end to put the ball back in the Aggies hands, Ivan Aurrecoechea tied his career high with 23 points, Jabari Rice added 20 more and NM State survived for a gritty 61-57 victory over CSU Bakersfield Thursday night inside the Pan Am Center.

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