Game Four
NM State (2-1) vs. Santa Clara (6-2)
Thursday, Dec. 31 | 3:00 p.m. MT | Toyota Arena | Ontario, Calif.
Watch | Listen | Live Stats | NM State Game Notes | Santa Clara Game Notes
OPENING TIPS
• Before the year 2020 thankfully comes to a long-awaited close, the NM State men's basketball team will hit the court one final time. Hoping to bounce back after their first loss in over one full calendar year, the Aggies head to Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif., for a 3:00 p.m. MT showdown with West Coast Conference adversary Santa Clara on New Year's Eve.
• The Aggies and Broncos were originally scheduled to play at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Saturday, Dec. 5, but a positive COVID-19 test within the Aggies' Tier One travel party forced NM State to hit the pause button.
• As of this writing, it is unknown whether or not Thursday afternoon's game will be streamed. This release will be updated with streaming information as it becomes available.
• Over the airwaves, longtime NM State play-by-play man Jack Nixon will narrate the action from Toyota Arena on Zia Country 99.5 FM in Las Cruces.
• Listeners outside of the Las Cruces area can access Nixon's call on the Aggie Sports Network's affiliate stations which include 103.5 FM KNMZ (Alamogordo), 1150 AM KNMM (Albuquerque), 1240 AM KAMQ (Carlsbad), 1380 AM KHEY (El Paso), 1230 AM, 94.9 FM KYVA (Gallup) and 107.1 FM KMDS (Las Vegas). Fans not in any of those areas can also find his broadcast via the TuneIn app which is available nationwide.
FAST BREAK POINTS
• Thursday afternoon the Aggies will find themselves in a position they haven't been in for over a year as they will try to bounce back from a loss. Fortunately, consecutive setbacks have been something of a rarity in the Chris Jans coaching era in Las Cruces.
• The Aggies are 15-2 (.882) in games coming directly after a loss under Jans' watch and as a DI head coach, Jans owns an overall record of 24-4 (.857) in games directly following losses. Through his four-plus years as a DI bench boss, his teams have never had a losing streak longer than two games.
• Thursday's matchup with the Broncos represents the 90th between the Aggies and a current member of the West Coast Conference (WCC). NM State is 57-32 (.640) in its program history against current WCC institutions.
• Now in his fourth season in charge of the Aggies, Jans is going in search of his first victory over a WCC foe. Jans is 0-3 against WCC adversaries as the Aggies have dropped two games against Saint Mary's and one against San Diego in his tenure.
• Thursday's game is also the 22nd the Aggies will play at a neutral site under Jans' watch. NM State is 14-7 (.667) in neutral site tilts since Jans stepped foot in Las Cruces and included in those 14 wins are triumph over Illinois (Dec. 16, 2017, in Chicago, Ill.), #6/7 Miami (Dec. 23, 2017 in Honolulu, Hawaii), Washington State (Dec. 23, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nev.) and Mississippi State (Dec. 22, 2019 in Jackson, Miss.).
• Jans is 11-6 (.647) against opponents from the state of California during his time as an NCAA Division I head coach. Under his watch, the Aggies have won seven of their last eight games agains California combatants.
• As a program, the Aggies are gunning for their first win over a WCC opponent since Nov, 26, 2016. That day, NM State scored a 56-51 win at San Diego in the championship game of the University of San Diego Classic. Ian Baker (15 points), Jemerrio Jones (14 points) and Braxton Huggins (11 points) led the charge for NM State in that tilt.
PERSONNEL PROFILE
• The front court combo of seniors Johnny McCants and Donnie Tillman has quickly emerged as one of the premier rebounding tandems in the nation.
• Tillman tops the Aggies' charts and ranks 34th nationally with 9.7 rebounds per game. Not far behind is McCants who sits at 47th in the land with 9.0 rebounds per game. They make the Aggies one of just three DI teams in the land who possess two of the nation's top-50 rebounders. Also included in that group are Alabama A&M (SWAC) and Louisiana (Sun Belt).
• On the defensive glass, Tillman's 7.3 rebounds per outing is the 24th-best average in the nation while McCants' 7.0 per game average is the 29th-best in the land. Together, they make NM State the only team in the nation to currently boast a pair of top-30 defensive rebounders.
• In his last outing, McCants passed the 500-rebound mark for his collegiate career. The Las Cruces, N.M., product grabbed eight in the Aggies' 66-63 setback at CSUN (12/28) to give him 505 for his career.
• Senior guard Evan Gilyard II ranks 42nd nationally and leads the WAC with a free throw percentage of 90.9. The Chicago, Ill., product also ranks 72nd in the land with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.50.
• Redshirt junior guard Jabari Rice suffered a foot injury on Tuesday, Dec. 1, in the Aggies' win over Benedictine Mesa that will keep him sidelined for a period of six-to-eight weeks. More foot troubles impacted the Aggies recently, too, as redshirt senior guard Clayton Henry suffered a foot injury which will keep him sidelined for an undisclosed period of time.
LAST TIME OUT | NM STATE 63, at CSUN 66
• The owners of a 12-point lead with 6:29 remaining, the Aggies hit just two field goals through that final stretch and CSUN's TJ Starks connected on a go-ahead three-pointer with 20 seconds left which helped lift the Matadors to a 66-63 triumph.
• With the loss, the Aggies saw their 21-game winning streak come to a painful end. NM State hadn't lost a game in over a calendar year with their last setback coming on Dec. 14, 2019.
• Johnny McCants led the way in the scoring department by pouring in a career-high 19 points on the strength of a career-best five three pointers. Senior guard Evan Gilyard II chipped in 13 and led NM State's effort at the free throw stripe by converting eight of his nine chances from that distance.
• Senior forward Donnie Tillman turned in his first double-double in an Aggie uniform, going for 10 points as well as a game and career-high 17 rebounds. Tillman's 17 boards were the most by an NM State player since McCants corralled 18 in a WAC home win over Seattle U on Feb. 13, 2020.
• Junior guard C.J. Roberts and redshirt sophomore forward Will McNair made their first appearances in the Aggies' starting lineup in the loss.
• Redshirt junior forward Mayan Kiir and sophomore guard Kalen Williams saw their first action in an Aggie uniform during the tilt. Williams logged 21 minutes and finished two points and two assists while Kiir netted a pair of points and snared two boards in two minutes.
AGGIES ON THE NATIONAL LEADERBOARD
• NM State ranks among the top 50 NCAA Division I teams in the nation in a handful of statistical categories including defensive rebounding (sixth, 32.0 per game), rebounding (18th, 43.0 per game), field goal percentage defense (16th, .371) and rebounding margin (44th, +8.7).
FORTY YEARS ON
• What was going on in the United States the last time NM State and Santa Clara got together on the hardwood? Jimmy Carter was occupying The White House, gas was $1.19 per gallon, Kenny Rogers' "Lady" had been holding down the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, The Empire Strikes Back, The Blues Brothers and Airplane! were three of the top four highest grossing films on the planet and Aggie head coach Chris Jans was just a few months away from celebrating his 12th birthday. Yes, it was 1980 - some 40 years ago.
• NM State and Santa Clara have met just two times in the history of the two programs with the all-time series split at 1-1.
• The most recent of those meetings came on Dec. 22, 1980. That day at the Leavey Center in Santa Clara, Calif., the Broncos got the better of the Aggies by a final score of 81-76 and evened the all-time series up at 1-1.
• NM State emerged as the victors in the first meeting between the two programs on Dec. 29, 1978. The Aggies earned a 93-86 win over the Broncos at the All-College Tournament in Oklahoma City, Okla., that day under head coach Ken Hayes. At that time affiliated with the Missouri Valley Conference, NM State won 22 games that year and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
SCOUTING SANTA CLARA | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATISTICS
• It ain't flashy, but it gets the job done. If there was a phrase to describe the Broncos' style of play so far in 2020-21 it would be this. Armed with a 6-2 record, one of the best defensive schemes in the land and a bona fide WCC star in senior forward Josep Vrankic, Santa Clara is hoping to put an end to its two-game skid when it enters the Toyota Arena.
• The Broncos are yielding just 60 points per game to the opposition which ranks as the 22nd-best scoring defense in the land. Opponents are connecting on only 34.7-percent of their field goals against Santa Clara, too, giving the Broncos the third-best opponent field goal percentage in the nation.
• As a squad, Santa Clara ranks among the top 25 in the nation in a few other categories, too, including blocked shots (24th, 5.0 per game) and rebounds per game (25th, 42.4).
• Vrankic is unquestionably the engine which makes the Broncos run. Leading the team and ranking eighth in the WCC in scoring (16.6 ppg), the Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, product who is also of Croatian descent has spend a ton of time at the foul line this year. His 53 free throw attempts rank 27th in the nation while his 35 makes are 55th among all DI players in 2020-21.
• On the glass the Broncos have two of WCC's top five rebounders at their disposal in Vrankic and Jaden Bedaiko. Vrankic's 8.7 rebounds per game tops the WCC charts and stands as the 65th-best figure in the land. Bedaiko, meanwhile, averages 8.3 boards per outing - fourth-most in the WCC and the 84th-best rate in all of DI hoops. Bedaiko also stands as the team's best shot blocker (2.0 bpg).
• Bedaiko (one), Keshawn Justice (two) and Vrankic (three) have combined to produce each of the team's six double-doubles this year and it's Justice who is the team's highest-usage player (34:31 minutes per game in 2020-21). Justice also serves as the squad's second-best defensive rebounder (6.4 per game) and has hoisted up 45 of his team's 148 three-pointers so far.
LET'S GO STREAKING
• The Aggies' dominance - both overall and in the WAC - as of late has resulted in any number of impressive winning streaks for the squad.
• 34 | Dating back to the 2018-19 season, the Aggies have won 34 consecutive games against WAC opposition - the nation's longest active run against league foes.
• 31 | In regular season WAC tilts, NM State has reeled off 31 consecutive triumphs - the longest streak in the history of the league and the longest active run in the nation. The Aggies' run of 31-straight regular season conference wins is the fifth-longest in the 21st century, too. NM State's current run of consecutive regular season conference wins this century has been surpassed only by Davidson (43 from 2007-09), Gonzaga (40 from 2018-20), Memphis (33 from 2006-10) and SFA (32 from 2013-15).
• 25 | Inside their home venue of the Pan Am Center, the Aggies have racked up 25-straight triumphs over WAC opposition. That's the nation's second-longest winning streak in conference home games bettered only by South Dakota State's 27 consecutive home victories over Summit League adversaries.
• 16 | NM State has won its last 16 WAC road games. The Aggies' streak of conference road wins is the longest in the nation at the moment.
COMING UP NEXT
• As it stands currently, the Aggies' next showdown is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 8, 2021, when the three-time defending WAC champions head to St. George, Utah, for their league opener at Dixie State. There is hope, however, that more non-conference games will be scheduled for the Aggies between now and Friday, Jan. 8, 2021.
++NM State++
