Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State head men’s basketball coach Chris Jans announced the addition of Kortrijk Miles for the 2017-18 basketball campaign.

“I'm elated Kortrijk has chosen to attend New Mexico State and join our men's basketball program,” Jans said. “Kortrijk is a well-rounded person and player that comes from a basketball family.”

Miles comes to NM State after leading Lincoln High School to the quarterfinals of the Texas University Interscholastic League 4A State Playoffs. He was named the Texas 4A Player of the Year after guiding the Tigers to an undefeated season in district play (13-0) with an overall record of 27-5 while averaging 22 points and 12 rebounds.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Chris Jans’ first order of business as New Mexico State’s head men’s basketball coach is the hiring of Lou Gudino as his associate head coach.

“I have always respected Coach Jans for as long as I’ve known him,” Gudino said. “I’m also very well aware of the basketball history at New Mexico State and have admired it. Both Coach Jans and the Aggie basketball program have a great track record of winning. I am very grateful for this opportunity and look forward to finding student-athletes to join the Aggie family.”

Gudino, a 20-year veteran, recently wrapped up his 10th season with the Sycamores and seventh as the team’s associate head coach.   Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State Director of Athletics Mario Moccia handed the reigns to the coveted Aggie men's basketball program to Chris Jans Monday afternoon, naming the Fairbanks, Iowa, native the 26th head men's basketball coach at NM State.

The 25-year veteran takes the helm of an Aggie team that returns 4-of-5 starters and won a program record 28 games. The 2016-17 squad also owned the nation's third-longest winning-streak that lasted for 20-straight games.

He recently began his second-stint at Wichita State prior to the start of the 2016-17 season under head coach Greg Marshall. At the conclusion of this past season, Jans was elevated to associate head coach before taking the NM State head coaching job.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State center Tanveer Bhullar will be moving on from the Aggie basketball program to seek other opportunities as a graduate transfer or play professionally announced head coach Paul Weir.

“Tanveer has been an absolute pleasure to coach in my time here,” Weir said. “I can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done for us and we all wish him nothing but the best at his future destination.”

The 7-2 redshirt junior is eligible to graduate from NM State at the end of the spring semester with a degree in sociology. Bhullar will look to play as a graduate transfer or move on and play professionally.

The Ontario, Canada, native eased his way into the rotation late in the season, making 22 appearances in 2016-17 and averaged 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds with a .522 shooting clip. In addition, the redshirt junior also tallied 10 blocks and five assists in the recent campaign.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State senior guard Ian Baker earned Associated Press All-American Honorable Mentions on Tuesday. Baker joins seven other Aggies that earned All-American status and is just the fourth NM State basketball player to be named an AP All-American.

Baker further cemented his place in New Mexico State basketball lore after becoming the third Aggie to earn AP All-American Honorable Mention status in the last four years and fourth overall, joining James Moore (2003), Daniel Mullings (2014) and Pascal Siakam (2015).

The Washington, D.C., product was also named the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year earlier this month in addition to his National Association of Basketball Coaches All-District 6 First Team award. He also recorded his 1,000th point early on in the season at UTEP when he sank a pair of free throws in the second half.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: WAC Media Relations

KANSAS CITY, MO - Three WAC men's basketball players have been named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-District 6 Team selected and voted on by member coaches of the NABC. NM State's Ian Baker was a first team selection, while Jaylin Airington of CSU Bakersfield and LaVell Boyd of UMKC were named to the second team.

Baker, the WAC Player of the Year, ranked second in the league in assists (4.15), third in both free throw percentage (82.9) and assist-turnover ratio (1.85), fourth in minutes per game (33.09), fifth in scoring (16.7), seventh in steals (1.27), eighth in three-pointers per game (1.91) and 10th in defensive rebounds (3.73). He scored 20 or more points 10 times during the season and was named WAC Player of the Week three times.

COACH WEIR: I have to tip our caps to Baylor. They played a terrific second half. It's a great team. You know, I was talking to Coach Henson earlier this week before we left, and coach told me that you're going to have to play well but they're going to have to have a bit of an off night and we didn't catch them on an off night. They went 14 for 14 on the free throw line in the second half. They made a lot of two-point jump shots and just made a lot of plays. So you gotta give Baylor credit.

I thought we played well, ran out of gas there towards the second half. But that has nothing to do with how hard these guys work or how much they care. It was just a little bit of maybe just running on a little bit of fumes from three games in three days last week. But an amazing opportunity for us. Unfortunately, the margin of error in games like this is really, really small. And we just had a couple of missed cues here and there, missed free throws here and there.  Continue Reading This Post >>

COACH DREW: Well, I thought our offense was good both halves. The big difference was second half. We held them 36 percent and 2-8 from three. So really defended better. And then we only had five turnovers, which we were able to keep them out of transition more because of that. I thought they're a very good team, very explosive team.

And I thought our effort in the second half to take care of the ball and make sure we got back in transition was really good. And all year long our depth has been a good strength.

Al and T.J. had monster games, and that's what the beauty of having depth is. So they're experienced players. They didn't want to stop playing, and they did a great job stepping up, especially when Mot was in foul trouble the first half.

Q. Terry, that first after in particular, with J. Mot in foul trouble, did you feel like you needed to step up at that point?  Continue Reading This Post >>

Q. Ish, obviously you guys want to get past the first round. How much motivation is that after what's happened the last two years?
ISHMAIL WAINWRIGHT: What happened the last two years? No, we haven't really talked about it. We know what we need to do. Coach has broke down everything. Just moving on. This is a new season, New Mexico State is a great team. They're led by a great point guard. Coach is amazing, too. So we know what's at stake and we know what we need to do.

Q. Johnathan, their coach talked about it that the teams are very similar in terms of if you look at stats in particular, both good offensive rebounding teams, both good three-point shooting defense. How much of an emphasis will it be to keep them off the offensive glass? Obviously they're going to try to do the same thing to you, but how much of that will be an emphasis for you guys?  Continue Reading This Post >>

Q. Ian, you're pretty much the only one on this team who's played meaningful minutes at an NCAA game. How key is your leadership going to be for a lot of the guys the first time playing in a tournament game?
IAN BAKER: I think it'll be very key. I think my job is to keep my team calm and keep them composed and give their best effort.

Q. Kind of to piggyback off that, I know you have played in a tournament game before, too, but how key has Ian's leadership been for you this year and how key will that be in this game?
MATT TAYLOR: It's been huge obviously all year. He's been a guy that we've looked to and we've fed off of him. We've always said our PG is going to take us as far as we go. So him being our team leader and stuff like that, it'll definitely help out there when we go through stuff that some of us haven't been through.  Continue Reading This Post >>