New Mexico State men’s basketball coach Chris Jans addresses players at a recent practice at the Arizona Grand Resort & Spa in Phoenix. The Aggies play at CSU-Northridge on Monday. (NMSU Athletics)
The games, at long last, will go on for the New Mexico State Aggies.
The program that has had to relocate to Arizona and is one of the last Division I programs in the country yet to play a Divsion I opponent this season is scheduled to tip off at 3 p.m. Monday in the Matadome at Cal. State University-Northridge — a member of the Big West Conference that is 3-3 on the season.
The game, while in the works for some time, is scheduled to begin less than 48 hours from when it was officially announced on Saturday evening by the Aggies, who are 2-0, but those were wins against NAIA competition Nov. 29 and Dec. 1, meaning there have been 27 days between games for the program, including a 12-day “pause” from team activities due to a pair of positive COVID-19 cases within the program.
“I don’t know what to expect, to be honest with you,” NMSU coach Chris Jans said in the past week on a Talking Grammer podcast interview.
“You know, we’ve had our fair share of nicks and cuts, if you will. And the pause. So, we’ve had to hit the reset button more times than we wanted. But we’re trying to rely on who we’ve been, as a program the last few years, and just trying to stick to our culture. … How we’ll perform in the lights — it’s been so long, and it will be a different look than we had going into the season. So I’m just curious as to anybody else.”
The Aggies do have those two NAIA wins under their belt, but lost in one of those games Preseason WAC Player of the Year Jabari Rice to a broken foot. While he’s still out, NMSU did, thanks to an NCAA ruling to allow most transfers sitting out to become immediately eligible, get to add on the services of 6-foot-9 junior forward Mayan Kiir, a transfer from South Florida.
Leading the team in scoring through two games are a pair of seniors in UNLV transfer Donnie Tillman, a 6-7 forward who is scoring 16.0 points per game, and 6-4 senior guard Clayton Henry (15.5 ppg).
The Aggies hope to get another game on the schedule this week if possible and maybe two to three more before the Jan. 8 WAC opener at Dixie State, which, for now, is the next scheduled game for the program.
The Aggies’ recent 12-day pause in basketball activities — brought on by a pair of positive COVID-19 cases in the team’s “Tier 1” group (players, coaches, trainers and whoever else is in direct contact with the team) — led to the cancellation of three Divsion I games: at Santa Clara (Dec. 5), at Cal Poly (Dec. 7) and at Arizona (Dec. 12). It also led to the announcement by UTEP that the Miners would finalize their non-conference schedule without the annual rivalry series with NMSU (the first time they didn’t play since World War II) and the UNM/NMSU rivalry has not been scheduled.
The NCAA this season requires teams to play 13 Division I games to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. NMSU’s WAC schedule is only 14 games after the Chicago State men’s program last week announced it will fold for the season, meaning any future COVID-related cancellations leave NMSU in dangerous territory.
Still, Monday’s game is less to do with that 13-game minimum matter as it is the need to get some game experience.
“We need the game to keep our kids motivated,” Jans said. “To ask them to continue to practice day after day — and it turns into week after week — at this point of the season when they’re seeing everybody else compete across the country, we wouldn’t even think about waiting to league play. We need to compete under the lights. We need opportunities.”
UP NEXT: Monday, NMSU at CSUN, 3 p.m., BigWest.tv (online stream), 99.5 FM (LC)/1150 AM (Abq)
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December 28, 2020 at 09:48AM
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Wait is over: Aggies play Monday at Cal State Northridge - Albuquerque Journal
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