Menzies: Aggies must start better
Early turnovers costly in Baylor loss
It’s hard to beat a team of Baylor’s caliber with 15 firsthalf turnovers.
And for New Mexico State, it couldn’t overcome those turnovers in the Aggies’ 85-70 loss to No. 23 Baylor Wednesday night at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas. Wednesday was the first of two guarantee games in a row as NMSU received $100,000 from Baylor and will receive $125,000 for Monday’s game at Wichita State. Baylor is the only Power-5 conference school on NMSU’s 2015-16 schedule.
“(Baylor) did a good job and we did a bad job when it came to taking care of the ball,” Aggies coach Marvin Menzies said. “They’re long and athletic and they anticipated our passes. They were well prepared and did a good job. With that being said we have to play better than 15 turnovers in the first half. That pretty much dictated the outcome. Even when you play well and get it down to seven, you’re still fighting a battle. All it takes is one or two shots for them to stop the bleeding and that’s exactly what happened.”
NMSU (7-6) was down 29-9 in the first half and 45-30 halftime. The Aggies went on a 13-2 run with six points from Ian Baker and four points from Tanveer Bhullar to cut the Bears’ lead to 71-64 with 5:39 to go in the game after a Baker 3-pointer.
It was as close as the Aggies got. Baylor answered with a Taurean Prince 3-pointer, which sparked a 12-4 run by the Bears (9-2) to push the lead back to 15 with a little over a minute to go. Prince led Baylor with a game-high 34 points, six rebounds three steals. He shots 13 of 19 from the floor and was one of four Bears in double figures.
“That (cutting the lead to seven) shows some character and it shows some toughness,” Menzies said. “The real challenge is starting off the game a little better. We may change a few things to see if we can get the guys more ready in the beginning of the game. The routine we’ve been using for several years has worked for us, but every year you’re presented with a different team with a different mentality. We’ll tweak some things and talk to them a little bit too and see if we can get them more ready to go when the game starts.”
Wednesday was also the biggest challenge of the year for NMSU junior Pascal Siakam, going up against a solid, high major defense in Baylor. In front of 12 NBA scouts at the Ferrell Center, Siakam recorded his 11th double-double of the season with 26 points and 10 rebounds on 9 of 17 from the floor.
“He’s a pro in the making and he played like one tonight,” Menzies said. “He did a really good job on the glass and also scored when he got the touches. The problem was we just gave them so many easy buckets with their transition off of our turnovers, he would have had to have 45 tonight for us to pull this thing out. But, he played well. He’s staying humble and he’s working hard. We’re optimistic that he’ll continue to get better.”
NMSU finished with 22 turnovers and Baylor turned those into 25 points. The Aggies shot 62 percent (16 of 26) in the second half and 52 percent (24 of 46) for the game. Baylor took 19 more shots than the Aggies, shooting 48 percent (31 of 65) because of NMSU’s turnovers.
Baker finished with 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and six turnovers.