The Aggies finished the night hitting 25-of-47 shots (53.2 %) and making 14-of-21 free throws. The NM State defense came up with four blocks and six steals and forced the Roadrunners to toss up nine turnovers.
“I am really happy with the victory and I thought that [just like Seattle], Bakersfield played a phenomenal game had a great game plan, throwing a lot of different defenses at us,” said head coach Marvin Menzies. “We knew as coaches what we wanted to do but our guys were just a little caught off guard. Eventually we settled down and made adjustments. At the end of the day I am really happy with how we played and responded but you got to give credit to Bakersfield Rod Barnes did a fantastic job.”
The Aggies started the game on a 7-1 run but Bakersfield surged with an 11-7 run to pull within two with 11:27 left in the half. NM State fell behind for the first time in the game at 19-18 with 9:15 left in the half when Bakersfield’s Javonte Maynor hit a 3-pointer. Junior Tshilidzi Nephawe hit 1-of-2 free throws to tie the game at 19, but the Roadrunners went on a 5-0 rally taking a 24-19 lead at the 8:14 mark. It was back and forth until the end of the half as Bakersfield scored another 17 points and the Aggies scored 16 to make it a 35-26 ballgame at the half.
NM State started the second half going on a 10-5 run in the first 3:43 of play that included two layups from Mullings and one each from Bhullar, Dixon and Nephawe to make it a 40-38 game in favor of Bakersfield. The Aggies battled and eventually tied the game at 43-43 when Mulling put in another layup at the 12:29 mark. NM State was shooting 8-of-9 in the first 8:20 play and contained the Roadrunners defensively.
Mullings got a steal put in a high-flying dunk to give his team 56-52 lead with 5:05 left on the clock in regulation. Both teams exchanged points for the next 3 minutes but NM State extended its lead to nine when Mullings put in two consecutive layups to take the score to 65-56. NM State hit four free throws with under 20 seconds to play as Bakersfield drained a 3-pointer with 6 seconds left but that wasn’t enough as the Aggies walked off the court with a 69-63 win.
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