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NMSU Aggies Win WAC Championship-Ready to Dance.
New Mexico State University Aggies basketball team found itself heading toward unfamiliar territory. The NCAA Tournament would be sending an invitation to the team to come dance. No, it would not be an 'At-large' invitation. They were getting a pass due to their winning the WAC Championship after a powerful finish of the season.
Part of the reason must be given to Reggie Theus who has riden an astronomical rise of the team. Theus -- a former assistant to Rick Pitino at Louisville -- took over nearly two years ago. The only surprise to Aggie fans is that it happened so quickly given that Theus took over a program that had just finished a 6-24 season -- the school's worst in 39 years.
Theus led the Aggies to a quick turnaround -- 16-14 last season -- a runner-up finish to Nevada this season and the WAC tournament title.
The Aggies got to the championship game by beating Boise state in an easy warm-up game. Elijah Ingram scored 11 of his season high 25 points in the last 92 seconds of the first half and New Mexico State advanced to the championship game of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament with an 88-69 win over Boise State on Friday night.
Ingram, a streak shooter who missed 13 of 17 shots last week in a loss at Nevada, took over the Aggies' offense just as it appeared to be stalling. Karl and Lane hit back-to-back 3-pointers to get the Broncos within 32-30 with 2:15 left in the first half.
A dunk by Iti on one of the Aggies' 15 offensive rebounds, made it 49-34 three minutes into the second half and the lead grew to 58-41 when Ingram connected on his final 3-pointer of the night with 14:04 remaining.
Nevada lost the chance to defend their WAC title by losing in the early round of the WAC tournament. Utah State University knocked Nevada out of the tournament. NMSU built a 35-25 halftime lead on the shooting of Elijah Ingram and Justin Hawkins .
But the Utes tied it at 47-47 on a 22-12 run. And then NMSU got hot with Elijah Ingram hitting 2 3-Pt. shots, the last one being a rainbow 26-footer. Hawkins and Nelson both hit 2-Pt. shots to give NMSU the lead 56-51.
The Utes were not about to go quietly. Behind the shooting of J Carroll who made 2 FT's and hit a 22-ft jumper for 3 points. The gap was only 58-56. NMSU got hot and streaked to a 68-61 lead with 1: 32 minutes remaining.
NMSU kept up the pressure and gave their coach a big WAC prize.
(Photos: File- Valley Publishing Company)
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