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NMSU senior Johnny McCants drives to the basket during Friday’s WAC Tournament semifinal win over Utah Valley at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Courtesy NMSU Athletics)This was not the road the New Mexico State men’s basketball team had been used to taking.
But the destination is exactly the same as it has been for the past decade.
Thanks to a wire-to-wire 78-62 semifinal win over No. 2 Utah Valley on Friday night, the third-seeded Aggies advanced to another Saturday night WAC Tournament championship game at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It is NMSU’s ninth-consecutive appearance since 2012 in the league’s title game, which was not played in 2020 due the COVID-19.
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New Mexico State University forward Donnie Tillman grabs a rebound in Thursday’s win over UT-Rio Grande Valley in the WAC Tournament quarterfinals at the Orleans in Las Vegas, Nev. (Courtesy NMSU Athletics)
LAS VEGAS, Nev. It wasn’t feedback from his headset.
It wasn’t the Orleans Arena music blaring overhead that did it.
As New Mexico State University men’s basketball coach Chris Jans was conducting a postgame interview socially distanced, of course with WAC Broadcasting Coordinator Rachel Vigil after Thursday’s dominating 77-61 conference semifinal win over UT-Rio Grande Valley, the fourth-year Aggies coach had an unusual noise filling his ears.
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LAS VEGAS, Nevada New Mexico State’s dominant run as the three-time regular season champion of WAC basketball ended with prejudice this season. But the Aggie men have saved their best for last, seemingly, just in time for the postseason.
The No. 3-seeded Aggies (10-7, 7-6 WAC) take on the No. 6-seeded UT Rio Grande Valley (9-9, 2-5) Thursday at 9 p.m. MT in a quarterfinal of the six-team Western Athletic Conference tournament at The Orleans Arena.
The Aggie men have experienced the same trials as has New Mexico in terms of the all-road schedule, necessitated by the state’s public health order. And COVID made an impact eight games canceled (including two vs. a Chicago State team that opted out during the season) and two more postponed. NMSU started slowly and needed the two-game road sweep of Dixie State last week just to creep over .500 in league play.
In most years, the narrative for WAC Vegas is clear.
All eyes are fixed on New Mexico State, as the Aggies seek to cap off a season arguably deserving of an at-large bid with the league’s automatic bid which, fair or not, is their only realistic path to the Big Dance. There’s no such argument this year. A stop-and-start, adversity-filled season for NMSU didn’t contain the type of gaudy numbers to which WAC followers have become accustomed.
Instead, there’s a more exciting narrative swirling in Sin City this year. Put simply, the thing is wide open, and someone may grab a historic bid.
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