Players convince Weir that they need to press
First-year head coach applauds ‘collective ownership’ and input
LAS CRUCES — After New Mexico State’s 84-72 men’s basketball home loss to Utah Valley last Thursday, the players met with first-year head coach Paul Weir. They had struggled defensively, giving up at least 83 points over each of the previous three games and had lost three out of their last four after winning 20 straight.
The team told Weir that it wanted to get back to full-court pressure defense. His response?
“I wanted everyone in that circle to feel as though they have a hand in this,” Weir said. “That’s everybody’s minutes on the roster to some degree and hopefully that kind of collective ownership and buy-in to give us the energy, and eventually, the effort it takes to be as successful as this team can be.”
Weir said getting back to fullcourt pressure Saturday night in an 86-53 rout of visiting Seattle got the team’s energy back. He expects the Aggies (24-5, 10-3 Western Athletic Conference) to play that way the rest of the season, even over three games in three days, if necessary, at the WAC tournament March 9-11.
“I was sitting here saying we don’t have our legs and we have to get stops and looking at it from a coaching lens, when I probably should have engaged them a little bit more,” Weir said. “And been more of an open-minded or player-oriented coach and give them a little bit of a voice, which I have, and listen to them. We all want the same things at the end of the day, which is just to play really, really hard. I thought we played hard (Saturday) and we just have to make sure we continue this the rest of the way.”
Two players who had not played much until Saturday delivered. Tanveer Bhullar, who was only averaging 6.5 minutes per game in 16 games, responded with a season-high 11 points and five rebounds, four offensive, in 14 minutes. Chance Ellis scored a season-high nine points, going 3-of-5 on 3-point attempts in a season-high 16 minutes. Ellis was averaging just 5.4 minutes per game and had played in 13 previous games. No Aggie played more than 26 minutes in the lopsided win.
Weir had put weight goals on both the 7-foot-2 Bhullar and Ellis that they had to meet before they could get back into the rotation.
“I’m really glad that they did,” Weir said. “Tanveer is obviously a unique player. I think he has some strengths that we can utilize. He also has some weaknesses that we have to find a way to cover up as best as we can.”
Bhullar also had to meet physical fitness goals in the beginning of the season too in order to play and missed the season’s first three games because had not met those goals. Bhullar lost a lot of weight prior to the season, but said he got away from that in December and January because he wasn’t playing.
“Coach has been on me and Chance lately … because he knew we were going to get back into the rotation,” Bhullar said. “I was hoping we were needed, but we didn’t really know what was going to happen. We had to make sure we were ready. (Saturday), we both got our chance and we showed up.”
New Mexico State is projected as a No. 7 seed, and an at-large bid, for the NIT in NYC Buckets’ NIT Bracketology on Monday. It had the Aggies going to No. 2 Illinois in the first round.
If the Aggies don’t win the WAC tournament and the accompanying automatic NCAA bid, NMSU could be in line for a NIT at-large bid as it has a 61 RPI (through Tuesday’s games). However, that also depends how many midmajor regular season champions don’t win their conference tournaments, which could take away at-large bids.
The Aggies are locked in as No. 2 seed for WAC tourney behind Cal State Baksersfield and will face No. 7 Chicago State in WAC quarterfinals on March 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. The game will stream on the WAC Digital Network (WACSports.com).
The NMSU-Chicago State winner faces the No. 3 UMKC-No. 6 UTRGV winner in the semifinals on March 10, 9:30 p.m. Mountain, to stream on ESPN3. The WAC championship game is March 11 at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.