Rivalry resumes: Aggies, Lobos ready to return to the court after tragic shooting a year ago

Quinton Webb remembers going to the Saturday morning shootaround in the Pit on the morning of Nov. 19, 2022.

He and his UNM Lobo teammates were expecting to get some shots up and walk through any final game-day preparations for what was supposed to be the first of two in-state rivalry games last season with the New Mexico State Aggies.

“I still remember, you know, going to shootaround and them telling us we may or may not play that game. We kind of didn’t know what was really going on at the time,” Webb recalls.

Soon thereafter, Webb, his teammates, the 15,411 fans who were expected to pack the sold out Pit later that night, and eventually the entire country learned the horrific details about what took place around 3 a.m. that morning. One UNM student was dead and an NMSU basketball player had been shot in the leg, forcing the first non-COVID related pause in New Mexico’s cherished annual college basketball rivalry since World War II.

Saturday night, after a year of chaos and turmoil at NMSU and a year after the unthinkable happened, the rivalry is renewed. Again, an expected sold-out Pit will be the scene as first-year NMSU coach Jason Hooten brings his Aggies to face Richard Pitino’s UNM Lobos. Tip-off is at 7 p.m.

“Excited certainly to resume this series,” Pitino said on Friday. “I know how much it means to our entire state — Lobo fans, Aggie fans — and it’s great that we could be back in this building and obviously return it to them.”

While both universities acknowledge that tensions in the rivalry had been growing in recent years, including on-court incidents related to logos and court stomping that had fan bases of both schools crying foul, both athletic departments are confident the series can resume in a safe manner — at both schools. Such was the case at the Sept. 16 football game in Albuquerque when the Aggies and Lobos played.

“Obviously what happened last year had nothing to do with our program. You don’t want to diminish that event, I mean that was a big tragedy. I don’t think it had anything to do with the rivalry, but it certainly happened” Pitino said Friday when asked if he would address last year’s incident with his team.

“So, (it’s more about) getting our guys to just understand the biggest flex, as the young people say today, is winning the game,” he added. “That’s it. Nothing else. I don’t think in the two games that I (coached in the rivalry) there were any incidents. I know there was them stomping on our logo (after a 2021 overtime win by the Aggies in the Pit). I was more offended by our defense in the last play than I was by that.”

Hooten, the man NMSU hired in the offseason, has been tasked with rebuilding the program after last season’s chaos, which didn’t only include the shooting but multiple hazing allegations. The latter ultimately led to the Aggies’ season being canceled with a game remaining, the firing of head coach Greg Heiar, and an $8 million settlement with two former players who alleged they were sexually assaulted by teammates in a series of hazing incidents.

Criminal charges have now been filed against three former players related to that hazing. No charges were filed against anyone within the NMSU men’s basketball program related to the shooting.

Not one player or coach from last year’s NMSU team is with the program now, which is why Hooten chose not to even address what happened last year ahead of Saturday’s game. Instead Hooten has made character and culture a priority, he has said, from day one with anyone he has recruited or brought in to be a part of the rebuild.

“There’s really no reason to because, first of all, nobody was here,” Hooten said Friday. “And second of all, that’s not how I run my program. We don’t have kids like that. And that’s just not a normal culture thing for me nor anybody that’s ever been involved or associated with me. So there’s no reason to address it in any manner or any way.”

Like Pitino, Hooten said that in no way diminishes what happened. It is just his approach to handling his team heading into this rebirth of the rivalry — one that his start-from-scratch Aggies will take the court as 17.5-point underdogs.

After recent overtime games he feels his Aggies should have won — at ACC’s Louisville (NMSU was up 8 in the final minutes before losing in overtime with only four players on the court because six others had fouled out) and over Mountain West’s Fresno State in Cancun — Hooten says every game, even a rivalry, is another opportunity to start building up this team and writing a new story.

“I do think we’re taking steps in the right direction,” Hooten said. “And, you know, all you can do is continue to fight and continue to improve.”

SERIES HISTORY: UNM leads the all-time series 123-103 with a 74-42 edge in games played in Albuquerque and a 38-18 advantage in the Pit.

NMSU has won six of the past 10 games in the series; UNM has won three of the past four. NMSU won the last meeting, 78-76 in overtime in the Pit on Dec. 6, 2021.

Due to COVID in 2020 and last year’s shooting, the two games played in the past three years are the fewest played in that time span since World War II. There were no games played in the 1942-43 and 1943-44 seasons and just one played in 1944-45.

HOT TICKET: As of Friday evening, UNM Deputy Athletic Director David Williams reported there were 14,800 tickets out for Saturday’s game in the 15,411-seat Pit. Williams said he anticipated the number would clear 15,000 by the end of the night.

While there were sellouts in the Pit last season in Mountain West play, the first in the Pit in many years, the last non-conference and last Rio Grande Rivalry game sold out at either school was on Dec. 17, 2013, in the Pit — a 67-61 Aggies win.

UNM officials ask fans to arrive early to avoid long waits going through security to get in the game.