By Arnie Leshin
NCAA or NIT? For the men’s basketball team at New Mexico State University, it’s going to one or the other. For the Aggie women, it’s going to be neither.
That’s what came about when the Western Athletic Conference announced Thursday morning it was cancelling its conference tournament. For the NMSU men, winning the conference tournament would have automatically put them in the NCAA tournament, but if you look at their record, it appears that they still have a better-than-bubble chance to be selected when the 72-field announcements are made Sunday.
If not, the NIT would do just fine, and it does play its semifinals in Madison Square Garden, the Mecca arena of all.
Overall, the Aggies are 25-6 and on a 19-game win streak. They became the first school to finish undefeated in the WAC after winning all its 16 games.
No such luck for the school’s women. They were 12-18 overall and 8-8 in the conference, so only winning the WAC tournament would have gotten them into the NCAA tournament.
The annoucement of the cancellation was as following: The Western Athetic Conference has announced the cancellation of the Hercules Tires WAC baseketball tournaments presented by TicketSmarter, and which was scheduled to be played in Las Vegas, Nev. This decision was made by the WAC board of directors made based on new information.
The Mountain West men’s and women’s tournaments were already played in Las Vegas, with Utah State winning the men’s over top-seeded San Diego State, and 2nd seeded Bosie State winning the women’s over top-seeded Fresno State.