NMSU thrives under Theus
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – Reggie Theus knew it wouldn’t take long to turn around New Mexico State’s free-falling men’s basketball program.
“Publicly, I would have never admitted it. I was taught well,” he says. “You’ve got to give yourself a five-year window, just in case. But in my mind, I felt I could turn this around pretty quick.”
That he has.
A season and a half after taking over a team that finished 6-24 in 2005, the school’s worst record in 39 years, the former NBA star has the Aggies on a sizzling midseason streak. They’ve won 15 of their last 16 games entering today’s contest at San Jose State.
While they are not in the Top 25, they are turning heads.
New Mexico State (16-4, 6-1 WAC) this month shared the nation’s longest winning streak – 13 straight – with Wisconsin. It ended with an overtime road loss at Louisiana Tech, but the Aggies bounced back to beat then-No. 15 Nevada 80-75 in Las Cruces.
It was New Mexico State’s first win in eight years over a Top 25 team and put the Aggies in position to end the Wolf Pack’s three-year run of Western Athletic Conference titles.
Expectations have been soaring since Theus was hired. The Aggies haven’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1999, but their fans are convinced this is the year.
Attendance at home games has doubled since the 2004-05 season to the current average of nearly 9,600 and there’s been a serious spike in the sale of “Reggie Nation” T-shirts.
“Reggie is our man and everybody wants him,” said Hilda Ortega, a buyer of clothing at the campus bookstore.
Ortega said the bookstore sold 288 of those T-shirts the day before the Nevada game. She doesn’t recall this kind of excitement around Las Cruces since 1992, when the Aggies made it to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament.
Theus, who spent two seasons as Pitino’s assistant at Louisville, didn’t start from the ground up in rebuilding the Aggies. He quickly tapped into a pool of players ready to move on from their initial major college choices.
Forward Justin Hawkins transferred from Utah. Guard Fred Peete (Pullman High School) moved from Kansas State. Seven-footer Martin Iti came from UNC-Charlotte. Theus also signed 6-9, 240-pound Hatila Passos, who last year led Arkansas-Fort Smith to the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship.
Already at New Mexico State were former St. John’s guard Elijah Ingram, former Pepperdine guard Shaun Davis and forward Tyrone Nelson, a transfer from Prairie View A&M.
“He understands that recruiting is the lifeline of a program,” Pitino said. “Playing in the NBA for all those years, he understands that players win, so he knows why you win. He has everything it takes to be a big winner at the collegiate level, and if he someday wants to be a pro coach, he has the ability to do that as well.”
Hawkins, Peete and Iti sat out last season, when Theus and the Aggies provided a preview by going 16-14. Now, New Mexico State features one of the biggest front lines in the country with Passos, 6-9 Nelson, 6-7 Hawkins and Iti sharing playing time.
But Theus’ biggest catch came in November. He signed Herb Pope, a prep star at Aliquippa High in Pennsylvania, rated the 17th-best high school senior in the country by one scouting service. Also interested in Pope were Louisville, Texas, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Oklahoma.
“I learned from my two years at Louisville, it’s very difficult to outrecruit me,” Theus said. “I know the players that are out there that want to play this style of basketball.”
The style is up-tempo, with an emphasis on pounding the ball inside to the big guys when the pace slows. But it’s Theus’ captivating style, charisma and NBA resume that other recruiters find tough to match. After all, he spent 13 years in the NBA, enjoying All-Star seasons with the Chicago Bulls in 1981 and 1983.
“What does New Mexico State have that he couldn’t get at Texas or Oklahoma?” Theus said when asked about signing Pope. “It boiled down to him being able to relate to me.”
Theus doesn’t hesitate to show his tough side when his players underachieve. He delivered what he described as a “very harsh” talk to the Aggies after they lost their 13-game winning streak by blowing a six-point lead in the final 20 seconds of regulation in the 73-71 overtime loss to Louisiana Tech on Jan. 17.
“I speak so much about the opportunity we have in front of us. We missed an opportunity by losing that game,” he said. “I told them, ‘You had the game in your hands. You made the mistakes. They didn’t take the game from you. You gave it up. Don’t cry now.’ “
Hawkins agreed with Theus that the Aggies squandered a chance to draw more national attention by losing a game in which they led by 12 at halftime.
Three nights later, the Aggies ended Nevada’s 10-game winning streak and the Wolf Pack’s 15-game streak in WAC games.