In the preseason, Chris Jans declared this would be his best New Mexico State team yet. That elicited excitement, considering Jans’ first team in Las Cruces won 28 games, while last year’s Aggies went 30-5 and nearly upset Auburn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Jans had four returning starters, nine guys coming back who played double-digit minutes in 2018-19 and seven seniors. He didn’t know that the extreme depth of his roster would quickly go from strength to means of survival. In a 24-hour period in October, three Aggies suffered major injuries. Wilfried Likayi, a 6-foot-9 junior college transfer, tore his ACL while doing a sliding drill alone before practice. Starting guard A.J. Harris broke a finger. Weirdest of all, guard Clayton Henry ripped a tendon in his thumb while falling during a warmup stretch in the weight room.
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And that was only the beginning of the injury epidemic. Juco import Dajour Joseph suffered a season-ending ankle injury in early December. All-WAC guard Terrell Brown was slowed by a preseason groin injury. Leading scorer Trevelin Queen tore a lateral meniscus in his knee on Jan. 16 at Utah Valley and underwent surgery. He returned to the lineup Thursday against Seattle but has played only limited minutes.
Harris and Henry both returned in late December. Harris played in three games before incurring a season-ending foot injury, while Henry appeared in just one game before breaking his hand in practice two days later. “That just seemed like cruel and unusual punishment,” Jans says.
In all, seven Aggies have missed more than 100 combined games because of injury.
“We have had to hit the reset button so many times this year,” Jans says. “It felt like Groundhog Day. Every time we walked into the video room, we had to update the team on a new injury and how we were going to play from here.”
Jans, who played as many as 13 guys at times last year, was down to eight scholarship players after Queen went down. He had to ask some former players living in town to provide bodies at practice. A student manager and marketing intern, Bryce Rewalt, was elevated to the roster in November; he has appeared in seven games and hit 6 of 9 3-pointers. The Aggies have played a slower tempo (339th nationally), pressed far less than Jans anticipated and have had to shorten their practices, all because of the injuries.
“It’s been a lot of duct tape and baling wire to get us to this point,” Jans says.
Yet after a 6-6 start, New Mexico State has won 15 straight games. The Aggies are 12-0 in the WAC, joining Baylor, Dayton, Gonzaga and San Diego State as the only teams still undefeated in their conferences. Jans has lost only three league games in his first three seasons, and the Aggies have won 30 straight WAC regular-season and tournament games. That streak nearly ended Saturday, but Jabari Rice banked in a 3-pointer just before the buzzer to beat Utah Valley.
“He banked it in!”
–@youngpbpAn 85-82 win for the Aggies tonight in the Pan Am! #AggieUp pic.twitter.com/oVKcsgQLkW
— NM State MBB (@NMStateMBB) February 16, 2020
They withstood the injury wave thanks to the volume of contributors Jans has recruited, as well as the chemistry and culture of winning within the program. Unfortunately, the slow start in nonconference play most likely spiked any chance of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. After finishing with a top 40 NET last year, the Aggies stood just 123rd in the NET on Sunday and 116th at KenPom.com.
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“Our metrics don’t say we should be in the conversation,” Jans says. “But I can’t imagine another team out there that sustained the types of injuries we had. From where I sit, I think that’s something that should be under consideration.”
New Mexico State will have to win the WAC tournament for its fourth straight March Madness appearance. Jans’ team will be the heavy favorite to do so — assuming his guys can get to the finish line in one piece.
Paladins back in the SoCon hunt
Furman was playing host to Mercer on a Wednesday night earlier this month, and the Paladins had their usual pregame routine. Film at 2 p.m., walkthrough at 3, pregame meal at 3:30. But when coach Bob Richey walked past the film room at 1:30, the players were already in there. Senior guard Jordan Lyons had called them together to review some communications errors during practice the day before.
“When I saw that,” Richey says, “I was very confident in the outcome that night.”
Furman won that game, 79-57, part of a seven-game winning streak that has the Paladins (22-5, 12-2) tied for first in the Southern Conference. This year’s success follows last season’s 25-win campaign when the team won at Villanova, briefly cracked the Associated Press Top 25 and got to the doorstep of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. The Paladins settled for the NIT after losing to UNC-Greensboro in the SoCon tournament semifinals.
“We were very close last year, being on the bubble and watching the selection show legitimately hoping we would get in,” Lyons says. “We definitely had a taste of it. This year, our whole focus, our goal, is to get into the NCAA Tournament.”
When Lyons committed to Furman, the program was in the midst of its first winning season in five years under then-coach Niko Medved. The team has won at least 20 games in each of Lyons’ four seasons, and he now holds the school record for career victories, with 93. The 5-11 point guard is also the school’s all-time leading 3-point shooter and leads the team in scoring this season at 17 points per game.
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“For a long, long time, Furman basketball was kind of in the slums,” he says. “So it’s been awesome to unite the community and the institution these last four years. It was really important for me to be a part of the change here and leave a legacy, so this has been something really special to be a part of.”
Players taking ownership and leading on their own has played a big part in the program’s recent success. Matt Rafferty and Andrew Brown took charge last year. But as the lone senior this year, Lyons got the message from Richey this summer that this would be his team. Lyons has developed from mostly a spot-up shooter early in his career to a guy who can drive and create, and this year he has become a key perimeter defender. “He’s turned into a complete player,” Richey says.
But can he lead Furman into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1980? The upcoming stretch will decide the SoCon regular-season title. On Wednesday the Paladins go to league co-leader East Tennessee State – whom they beat at home on Jan. 4. Then they host Wofford before a road test at UNC-Greensboro. With a NET ranking of 72, Furman is just outside the bubble conversation right now. That would be a lot different if the Paladins had held on at Auburn on Dec. 5. After leading by 14 points in the second half, they lost in overtime.
The SoCon nearly got an at-large bid last year, when UNC-Greensboro was the last team out of the field of 68. ETSU won at LSU earlier this year, and Richey says few power-conference teams are willing to schedule SoCon opponents.
“For whatever reason, (the league) can’t get the national recognition we deserve,” he says. “But at the end of the day, everybody wants to leave us on the fringe.
“ETSU should be an at-large team regardless right now. There shouldn’t even be a conversation about it. Especially when some of these power conferences don’t have the power they’ve had before. You look at the ACC this year and some of these other leagues, and there are going to be some slots. But for us, if we make one little mistake, then we’re out. It’s a little frustrating, but it is what it is.”
Mid-bits
• Conference USA announced its “bonus play” schedule on Sunday. This is the second year the league has used this format, in which teams play their first 14 games as scheduled and then are placed in three pods based on their records. They then play their final four games in those pods, and only the top 12 teams will be seeded in the conference tournament.
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The idea is to improve the schedule numbers of the best conference teams and to send more league members to the postseason. C-USA will be a one-bid league regardless, but this could help with NIT selections and possibly the NCAA Tournament seeding for the conference tournament champ. It would be interesting to see this format in use in other leagues that might have at-large candidates. Anyway, your Group 1 for bonus play is North Texas, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky, Florida International and Charlotte.
• Hofstra has won six straight to claim first place in the Colonial Athletic. The Pride have won nine true road games, including a Nov. 21 victory at UCLA. They are 47-15 since the start of last season, and with a talented senior backcourt of Eli Pemberton and Desure Buie, they could be a tough first-round matchup should they make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001.
• UC-Davis beat Cal State-Northridge, 110-98, on Saturday, setting a school record for points in a game. The 110 points came in 75 possessions. It was also the second-highest point total in a non-overtime, intra-conference matchup this year; Winthrop won at Hampton, 116-95, on Jan. 16.
• Staying in the Big West, Cal State Fullerton needed four overtimes to beat Cal Poly, 105-101, on Saturday. Six players logged at least 50 minutes, led by Fullerton’s Jackson Rowe iron-man 57. “He was trying to Uber Eats some food during the game,” Titans coach Dedrique Taylor joked afterward. Cal Poly’s Nolan Taylor, who came into the game averaging 6.5 points, went off for 35 in 46 minutes off the bench. The two teams also played on Jan. 3, with Cal Poly winning, 101-100, in merely one overtime. We are praying for a third meeting in the Big West tournament.
• Finally, Tennessee-Martin won an overtime thriller against Eastern Illinois on this Derek Hawthorne Jr. buzzer-beater:
Watch this #SCTop10 worthy moment as Derek Hawthorne, Jr. knocks down a deep three-pointer at the buzzer to lift @SkyhawkHoops to a thrilling overtime victory over Eastern Illinois. pic.twitter.com/hrsstuk4VF
— UT Martin Athletics (@UTMSports) February 16, 2020
Games of the week
No. 6 Dayton at VCU, 8:30 p.m. ET Tuesday (CBS Sports): It’s must-win time for the Rams, who have lost three of their last four to fall to 7-5 in the Atlantic 10. Beating Dayton would give them a marquee win on the team sheet to go along with the Nov. 13 victory over LSU. They probably don’t want to give up a 22-0 second-half run to the Flyers as they did in the 79-65 loss at Dayton last month.
Furman at East Tennessee State, 7 p.m. Wednesday (ESPN+): The No. 1 seed in the SoCon tournament is likely on the line here, though UNC-Greensboro can’t yet be counted out. The best outcome for the league getting two bids might well be ETSU winning the regular-season crown and someone else taking the tournament title.
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UNLV at No. 4 San Diego State, 7:30 p.m. Saturday (CBS Sports): The Aztecs’ 71-67 win in Las Vegas on Jan. 26 was their closest game in the past three months. The Runnin’ Rebels have lost five of their last seven, so their chances of pulling off the upset in Viejas Arena appear minuscule. But at least they know they can hang with the Mountain West’s juggernaut.
No. 2 Gonzaga at BYU, 10 p.m. Saturday (ESPN2): The Cougars weren’t competitive in Spokane, losing by 23 on Jan. 18. But they didn’t have Yoeli Childs for that one. A win here could lock up a single-digit NCAA Tournament seed for BYU, which hasn’t beaten Gonzaga since the 2017 regular-season finale.
Southern Illinois at Northern Iowa, 2 p.m. Sunday (ESPNU): Northern Iowa’s overtime loss at Loyola Chicago on Saturday made things more interesting in the Missouri Valley race. Southern Illinois beat the Panthers earlier this season in Carbondale.
The Mid-Major Top 10
1. San Diego State (26-0, 15-0 Mountain West): On paper, the Aztecs’ game at Boise State on Sunday looked like a potential threat to their undefeated season. There was a sold-out arena, a white-out and a home team looking to make a statement against a visitor that had already clinched a conference title. San Diego State didn’t care. It built a 14-point halftime lead, and when the Broncos tried to make things interesting in the second half by getting within eight, SDSU immediately answered with a 17-5 run. The Aztecs take care of business on the road as well as anybody in the country. Last week: 1
2. Dayton (23-2, 12-0 Atlantic 10): The Flyers pounded Rhode Island and fought through a sluggish win at UMass last week to stay perfect in league play. But all we really need to talk about is Obi Toppin’s and-one windmill dunk (drawing the foul on his brother, no less) in that Rhode Island game. Sheer ridiculousness. LW: 2
3. BYU (21-7, 10-3 West Coast): The Cougars trailed by one point with 25 seconds to go at San Diego on Saturday, but Yoeli Childs provided the game-winning dunk to avoid a résumé-marring loss. BYU was 19th in KenPom on Sunday and 22nd in the NET. It is 13-2 with Childs in the lineup. LW: 3
4. Rhode Island (19-6, 11-2 A-10): The Rams couldn’t get the job done at Dayton, but we can’t punish them too much for that. How about the Ref Show in that game? Officials called seven technical fouls despite there not being any real egregious behavior on either side. Dayton pays the return visit to Rhode Island on March 4, Obi Toppin’s birthday. LW: 4
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5. Northern Iowa (22-4, 11-3 Missouri Valley): A.J. Green forced overtime at Loyola Chicago with a 3-pointer with four seconds remaining, but that was one of the few things that went right for him. The Panthers star was just 8-of-23 from the floor and bloodied his face on a fall in the overtime period, possibly breaking his nose, according to coach Ben Jacobson. Perhaps UNI’s loss was karmic retribution for the school trying to stiff a halftime shooting contest winner earlier in the week. LW:5
6. East Tennessee State (23-4, 12-2 Southern): The Bucs trailed VMI on the road by nine points early in the second half before rallying for a 72-67 win. Thank goodness, because that would have been a Quad 4 loss. ETSU was playing without star guard Bo Hodges, who was attending the funeral of a family member. Patrick Good scored 14 points and helped ignite the game-changing run just hours after becoming a father; his girlfriend gave birth to a girl, Braelyn, at 9:49 a.m. Saturday. The game tipped off at 1 p.m. LW: 6
7. Saint Mary’s (21-6, 8-4 West Coast): The Gaels had a week to stew over their blowout home loss to Gonzaga and responded with a 71-63 win over Pacific on Saturday. Tournament team? Saint Mary’s was 34th in the NET on Sunday but with as many Quad 3 losses (two) as Quad 1 wins. The good news is the road and neutral record (9-3) is strong. But this is going to be a close call. LW: 8
8. Richmond (19-6, 9-3 A-10): The Spiders blasted crosstown rival VCU, 77-59, dealing a crippling blow to the Rams’ at-large hopes. Richmond is on a four-game winning streak, and its earlier losses to Dayton and VCU came when leading scorer Blake Francis was out with a fractured sternum. With a NET of 47, this is officially a bubble team. LW: Not ranked
9. Utah State (21-7, 10-5 MWC): The Aggies picked up a pair of road wins last week at Colorado State and Fresno State. They are 7-1 in their last eight games, with the only loss coming at San Diego State. A team that looked out of the NCAA Tournament picture a few weeks ago was 42nd in the NET and 39th in KenPom on Sunday. Never say never. LW: 9
10. Furman (22-5, 12-2 SoCon): The Paladins are one of only three Division I teams who have used the same starting lineup all season. North Texas and UNC-Asheville are the others. LW: 10
Dropped out: VCU
Waiting room: Vermont
(Top photo of NMSU’s Ivan Aurrecoechea: James Snook/USA Today Sports)
