EL PASO – One program picked up its first win of the season against an archrival it last beat three years ago to the day. The other program tried to find a silver lining in a loss in its first true test of the season.
One team played in front of a crowd of more than 11,000 fans for the second time this season. The other went on the road for the first time after opening the season against a Division-II opponent.
One coach was able to avenge last year’s regular-season sweep after taking a “gut punch” in his first game of the rivalry series. The other was filled with disappointment in his first game as a head coach against a Division-I team.
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UTEP beat New Mexico State for the first time since 2019.
The Miners’ 67-64 win marked their first victory of the season after losing at No. 12 Texas in the season opener. The Aggies’ loss marked their first loss of the year in their first road game of the season and first game against a fellow Division-I opponent. UTEP experienced elation and screams of joy in the locker room after sending the Aggies back to Las Cruces with a loss. NMSU experienced somewhat of a baptism by fire by traveling to a rival in its second game of the season with a roster with only two players who played in the Battle of I-10 last season and several players who had never played in front of a crowd as large as UTEP’s.
Neither program is where it wants to be this season as the two coaches put their respective brands on their schools, but it was apparent Saturday night that UTEP’s program-building is ahead of NMSU’s, even though NMSU head coach Greg Heiar took over a program that Won a NCAA Tournament game last year. Both teams only returned three members from their rosters last season, although UTEP head coach Joe Golding has had an additional year to settle into his current stomping grounds.
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“We’re year two (of) building it, and really we’re in year one with 10 new guys,” Golding said. “…We’re still learning, but I think our slack room and our toughness has changed, and I think we have more depth.”
Heiar said his team right now is playing at a “two” level when they want to play at a “10.” He said he was disappointed in the team’s effort and takes full blame, and he didn’t make excuses for NMSU’s on-court performance.
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The Aggies finished with 20 turnovers, tied with UTEP with 35 rebounds, hit four-of-sixteen 3-point attempts and finished with eight assists. Point guard Deshawndre Washington (who finished with a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds) and guard DaJuan “Quaye” Gordon both fouled out in the final minutes.
NMSU trailed 39-31 at halftime after committing 13 first-half turnovers and trailed by double-digits for most of the second half. The Aggies trailed by as many as 13 points and didn’t cut the lead to fewer than six points until the final eight seconds. UTEP hit two garbage-time 3-pointers in the last 10 seconds to produce a more favorable final score, but neither Issa Muhammad’s banked-in 3-pointer or Xavier Pinson’s heave had an outcome on the result.
Former Aggie Mario McKinney – playing his first game in a Miner uniform after transferring to UTEP over the offseason – had 10 points in 21 minutes off the bench against his former team. UTEP only connected on three-of-thirteen attempts from beyond the arc and shot 45% from the field (the exact same percentage as NMSU) but disrupted enough defensively to maintain a double-digit lead for the majority of the second half.
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NMSU led for 33 seconds. UTEP led for nearly 39 minutes.
“I’m just disappointed in our effort tonight. I thought they outplayed us in all of the aspects that we talked about going into the game. We had to take care of the ball. We had to rebound the basketball,” Heiar said. “They got timely offensive rebounds, and we were just way too loose with the basketball. The stats are pretty even, but the eye test of watching the game, I just thought we got outplayed.”
NMSU is only two games into the Heiar era; UTEP is two years into the Golding era. The Aggies will have a chance to avenge Saturday’s loss in two-and-a-half weeks when UTEP travels to Las Cruces Nov. 30, but Heiar still found a silver lining in the loss.
“We lost by three, and we got outplayed. We didn’t play very smart. We didn’t take care of the basketball,” Heiar said. “We had 13 turnovers at halftime and we had 20 for the game, so that kind of sums it up.”
NMSU’s schedule doesn’t get any easier having to travel to Albuquerque next Saturday to play New Mexico, but a team of 10 new scholarship players – many of whom had never experienced an environment like the Don Haskins Center Saturday – at least has an experience of adversity under its belt. UTEP takes on Sul Ross State Tuesday before heading to the Jim Forbes Classic the week of Thanksgiving.
Both teams are far from finished products. But Saturday was an important benchmark for both programs.
Stephen Wagner is a sports reporter for the Las Cruces Sun News. He can found on Twitter at @stephenwag22 and reached at [email protected].
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