One and done: UNM and NMSU men's basketball will now play just once a season

Twice was nice, but it’s now one and done for the annual in-state hoops rivalry between the UNM Lobos and NMSU Aggies.

The schools have agreed to play just once each season as opposed to the home-and-home — one game in the Pit in Albuquerque, one game in the Pan American Center in Las Cruces — which was the format for most of the past 120 years.

While contracts have not been finalized, the Journal has confirmed both school’s athletic directors — Eddie Nuñez at UNM and Mario Moccia at NMSU — and head coaches — Richard Pitino at UNM and Jason Hooten at NMSU — have agreed on the move.

The switch has long been called for by coaches of both schools but athletic directors and fans have pushed back on making the switch as both games are traditionally one of each program’s biggest draws at the box office.

The change, for now, will be for two years and will be revisited by the schools after the 2025-26 season, but is largely expected to become the new norm.

The school agreed the men’s basketball game will be played at the school not hosting the annual in-state football rivalry game that year. That choice was made for various reasons with financial impact being key.

This coming 2024-25 season, the Lobos/Aggies football game will be at Aggie Memorial Stadium in Las Cruces, so the Lobos/Aggies men’s basketball game will be played in the Pit on Dec. 7. A date for the 2025-26 basketball game in Las Cruces has not yet been set, but it will be played on a Saturday.

Despite what some believe, there is no state law or mandate legally binding the two teams to play more than once a year, or even once, for that matter. In fact, UNM and NMSU have quietly backed off regular rivalry meetings in many sports for various reasons over the past decade with little, if any, public reaction.

This agreement does not impact scheduling decisions for women’s basketball, which played just once this past season and in other years.

Both school’s sports information departments said the Rio Grande Rivalry was one of only two NCAA Division I nonconference rivalries in men’s basketball to play twice a season (many twice-a-season rivalries are between teams in the same conference). Now, the only regularly scheduled twice-a-season nonconference rivalry will be the Battle of the Boulevard in Nashville between Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun Conference) and Belmont (Missouri Valley Conference).

While fans of both schools often suggest playing their rival in down years only hurts their team’s chances at postseason play due to hits taken in the computer rankings, historical data from the RPI era and the more recent NCAA NET era show that rarely to be the case.

A benefit of dropping to one game a season is scheduling flexibility.

The Lobos, who will be moving from an 18-game to a 20-game Mountain West schedule, will now have just 11 nonconference games to schedule.

After a 26-win, top 25 NET ranking season in which the NCAA Selection Committee said it would not have selected the Lobos for the NCAA Tournament had they not won their conference tournament, the Lobos have shifted toward a far more ambitious nonconference slate this season that includes a road game at St. John’s (in Madison Square Garden), a much more competitive nonconference tournament in California that includes Arizona State, USC and Saint Mary’s, and at least one more game against a high-major program that is still in the works.