Aggies taking 16-game win streak to Seattle

Only No. 3 Gonzaga has a longer stretch

LAS CRUCES — While New Mexico State has matched the second-longest win streak in program history — it’s tied for the second longest active run in the country — it’s not something the team is thinking about or talking about.

Like they have all season, the Aggies (18-2, 5-0 Western Athletic Conference) are just focused on their next game, which is tonight at Seattle (9-10, 1-3).

“That’s all we have really done,” first-year NMSU coach Paul Weir said. “I know it’s kind of boring or doesn’t give a lot of information to a lot of people. But that’s all we have really talked about is the next game.”

The Aggies stretched their win streak to 16 on Saturday with a 94-71 win over Missouri-Kansas City. The streak matched the 1968-69 team’s for second-longest in program history. The record is 21 straight wins during the 1937-38 season.

With No. 2 Kansas’ loss on Tuesday, the Aggies’ win streak also moved up to second longest active in the nation, tied with Oregon and behind only unbeaten Gonzaga.

NMSU is also off to its best start in conference play since the 1993-94 season when the Aggies started Big West Conference play 9-0.

“I think, offensively, we are playing at a pretty good level as a team,” Weir said. “We’re having a good flow on that end of the floor right now, getting a lot of good looks at the rim. Even the misses that we had, I thought, were some wide-open 3s and some missed layups. Offensively, we are clicking.”

Weir said he would like to see some improvements defen-

are at. We’re going to have to continue with that to be the best defensive team we can be down the stretch.”

Weir said he thought the guards did a good job finishing around the rim on Saturday night, but with forwards Jemerrio Jones and Eli Chuha being undersized, they are rushing shots in the post.

“Johnathon (Wilkins), I think, is a little bit more stable and calm about making the shots he needs to make,” Weir said. “… Our offensive block percentage, I think, is top 10 in the country. We don’t get our shots blocked a lot. So, those guys have to slow down a little bit, come to stops and finish properly as opposed to rushing shots in the paint, which I think they do a little bit of now.”

NOTES: Weir said on Monday that sophomore redshirt guard Sidy N’Dir, who has been out since mid-December with a torn ligament in his foot, is still day-to-day. N’Dir is not fully 100 percent back to practice yet, but has been doing some workouts and is traveling with the team to Seattle and Utah Valley this weekend.

“He’s progressing,” Weir said. “If we had to play tonight, he wouldn’t be able to play tonight. But I’m hopeful by this weekend we’ll be having some better conversations about whether it’s going to be an option or not. Unfortunately, it’s just day-to-day.”

NMSU athletics director Mario Moccia said on Monday that Saturday’s NMSU-UMKC game was NMSU’s highest revenue game for a non-New Mexico or UTEP game in the past 17 years.

NMSU made about $41,600 with the “Pack the Pan Am” promotion, passing the 2014-15 game against Chicago State, which was also a “Pack the Pan Am” promotion, for the highest non-rivalry revenue game in the past 17 years.

About 63 businesses bought tickets for the promotion with many of those business donating the tickets. The announced attendance was 9,893, which was the most for a NMSU home game this season.