Basketball
The NMSU and UTEP men's basketball programs share remarkably similar histories and have played an extremely competitive series of games against one another. The programs both experienced their greatest national prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when both schools were led by young up-and-coming coaches who would eventually win more than 700 games (Don Haskins at UTEP, Lou Henson at NMSU) and appeared in the NCAA Tournament's Final Four within four years of each other. UTEP (then still known as Texas Western) won the 1966 national title while NMSU advanced to the 1970 national semifinal before falling to UCLA, but won the consolation game to finish the season third in the nation. Both programs returned to national prominence in the early 1990s with the Aggies and Miners both advancing to the NCAA Tournament's "Sweet Sixteen" in 1992. NMSU has appeared in the NCAA Tournament 18 times to UTEP's 17 appearances, and NMSU has advanced to the Sweet Sixteen five times to UTEP's four (although three of NMSU's appearances in the early 1990s, including the 1992 Sweet Sixteen run, have since been vacated by the NCAA due to rules violations). Most recently, both schools won conference titles and advanced to the NCAA tournament in 2010.
There is some discrepancy between the two schools on the all-time series record as well as the number of all-time meetings between the schools. Entering the 2011-12 season NMSU records show that the schools have met 200 times, with NMSU holding a 102-98 all time advantage, while UTEP records show 201 meetings with NMSU's advantage at 101-100. Uniquely among non-conference rivalries, the schools traditionally play a two game home-and-home series each season, unlike most other non-conference rivalry series where a single meeting per season is the norm. UTEP swept the 2010-11 series between the schools, winning 73-56 on November 23, 2010 in El Paso and 74-72 on November 30, 2010 in Las Cruces. The Aggies defeated the Miners 89-73 in the first meeting of the 2011-12 season series on November 19, 2011 at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces. And later in the second meeting of 2011-12 basketball season the Miners defeated the Aggies 73-69 on December 11, 2011 at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, TX to split the season series.
Read more about this topic: The Battle Of I-10
Famous quotes containing the word basketball:
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)