New Mexico State men and women start their seasons with wins at the Pan Am Center.

Deep bench spurs men; Salas, defense carry women

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — JoJo Zamora had 16 points, Terrell Brown added 13 and New Mexico State beat North Dakota State 73-56 in the season-opening Summit League/WAC Challenge on Tuesday night.

Twelve Aggies played at least 11 minutes and no one played more than 22.

The Aggies opened with an 18-3 run and led by double digits the rest of the way. They went into halftime up 36-20 and had their largest lead at 69-42 with six minutes left in the game.

New Mexico State struggled from 3-point range, making just 5 of 26, but Brown made 3 of 5.

Rocky Kreuser had 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting to lead the Bison. Kreuser was 5 of 6 from 3-point range.

New Mexico State had a 47-31 edge on the glass and outscored North Dakota State 44-16 in points in the paint.

NMSU WOMEN: In Las Cruces, the Aggies cruised to a 70-38 victory over UT Permian Basin behind Brooke Salas’ 22 points and an outstanding defensive performance in Tuesday night’s season opener.

New Mexico State finished the game shooting 26-59 (44.1%) from the field while holding the Falcons to just 26.9% shooting on the night. The Aggies forced 27 turnovers, the most since forcing 20 at home against Seattle on Feb. 18, 2018.

Salas passed Jeanette Feaster for 13th place on the NMSU’s all-time scoring list and now stands at 1,324 points in her career. Gia Pack had the eighth doubledouble of her career with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

NM State is back in action when it travels to Kalamazoo, Mich., to take on Western Michigan on Sunday, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m.