Feb. 7, 2011

Box Score

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Junior guard DeAndre Brown scored 18 points, but the Louisiana Tech men's basketball team lost to New Mexico State 75-57 Monday at the Pan American Center.

The Bulldogs fell to 11-14 overall and 2-9 in the Western Athletic Conference while the Aggies improved to 13-12 overall and 7-4 in the WAC.

"That's a good team with great length," Tech head coach Kerry Rupp said of New Mexico State. "I thought we came out flat and it took us a while to get things started. At this level you've got to be able to fight and play hard. We have them coming to our place on Saturday and its going to be a battle. We are going to have to play much harder and have better enthusiasm."

Brown scored 15 of his 18 points in the first half and finished the game shooting 7-of-16 from the field including 4-of-7 from three-point range.

"We started out with turnovers in the beginning of the game and then played better the rest of the half," Rupp said. "Then we started the second half with turnovers, but I thought we played better in the last five minutes."

Tech shot 41.5 percent from the field and 39.1 percent (9-23) from three-point range, while NMSU shot 51.9 percent and 31.6 percent from beyond the arc.

The WAC's second-leading rebounder, junior forward Olu Ashaolu was held to just seven boards and 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field.

Louisiana Tech fell behind 30-16 at the 7:41 mark in the first half, but then used a 12-2 run, on 10 points from Brown, to trail by just four points, 32-28 with 2:23 to play. However, the Aggies scored seven of the next nine points to take a 39-30 halftime lead.

The Bulldogs shot well from the field in the first half at 42.9 percent, but the Aggies shot better at 55.2 percent.

NMSU continued its hot shooting right from the beginning of the second half. The Aggies scored 17 of the first 20 points scored and led 56-33 with 13:25 remaining. The Bulldogs then scored 10 unanswered points to trail 56-43 at the 10:48 mark.

However, Louisiana Tech did not get any closer than that 13 point margin as the Aggies never trailed in the 18 point win.

New Mexico State's Troy Gillenwater led all players with 19 points on 6-of-10 shooting.

"I thought we did a much better job attacking the press," Rupp said. "Kenyon (McNeaill) did a really good job with that. It's hard to be good. You have to play hard. It's five guys moving hard every time."

Louisiana Tech will next be in action against this same New Mexico State team on Saturday at 3 p.m.