DAVID MALINSKY
4* NEW MEXICO STATE over BOISE STATE
Yes, we are in play again here, we just had to wait and let the markets do their thing. After cashing easy tickets behind these Aggies at home over San Jose State and Idaho since Troy Gillenwater became eligible, the latter bringing home a 6* payback on Wednesday, we can go to the windows again with what may be the single most under-valued team in the nation right now. And we get to back them on a night in which they are going to bring a special effort behind senior Jonathan Gibson, who plays on this court for the final time, with 125 games in a State uniform already under his belt.
This will be redundant, but let’s go back to the key – a short-handed Aggie team suffered some truly awful defeats early in the season, including identical counts of 100-68 at both U.C.L.A. and Saint Mary’s. All those games do is clog databases with misleading information, because the results carry no real meaning. Key inside cogs Wendell McKines and Gillenwater missed a combined 31 games, but since the latter became eligible they are on a 5-1 run, with his inside presence (he is averaging 13.8 ppg in only 22.5 minutes) now adding balance to that superb guard combo of Gibson and Jonathan Young (they are combining to averaging 39.0 per game). Now they are back to 18-9, and a candidate for one of the post-season tourneys if they can not win the W.A.C., and the momentum and sentiment of Senior Night can produce something special here.
Boise does not get in the way much. The Broncos had the kind of upset at Louisiana Tech on Thursday night that bad teams often have trouble following up on this late in the season, especially with the trip from Ruston to Las Cruces anything but a direct jaunt. A soft defense was exploited for 88 points in an earlier home loss to the Aggies, who scored at will even without Gillenwater available, one of five conference games in which they have allowed the opposition to shoot better than 50 percent from the field, a dubious feat that even U.C.-Davis managed in Boise last Saturday. The host brings the kind of explosiveness to exploit them fully here, which makes this result just a matter of time.