Peerman's Power Rankings: 10 most notable New Mexico sports stories in 2023

Welcome to Peerman’s Power Rankings (PPR), the 10 athletes, teams and story lines that had Journal sports editor Lucas Peerman’s attention in 2023. The PPR column will return to a compilation of the week's top stories next Sunday.

Have a suggestion, complaint or compliment? Email lpeerman@abqjournal.com or contact me on X @LucasPeerman.

10. Hines and Holland: Breakout basketball stars

New Mexico isn’t a hotbed of basketball talent, but the state’s Class of 2025 has two players among the most recruited in the nation.

Los Lunas’ Jalin Holland and Eldorado’s Bella Hines, both juniors, are among the top 100 players nationwide and both gained prominence within the past year.

Holland, a 6-foot-4 do-everything guard for the Tigers, is rated No. 89 in the country in his class. He picked up five Division I offers in 2023, including from national runner-up San Diego State.

Hines is unquestionably the best girls basketball player from New Mexico in decades. ESPN ranks the 5-foot-9 guard from Eldorado the 31st best prospect among all high school juniors. She’s also being recruited by the national runner-up — Iowa — in addition to a host of other top-tier schools.

9. Rio Grande Rivalry: The heat is on

The universities of New Mexico and New Mexico State have have had an athletic rivalry that goes back more than a century; and the animosity between the state’s two Division I schools might have reached its crescendo in 2023.

The rivalry games have been competitive but tame compared to what’s happened in practice facilities, in the stands and in postgame press conferences.

For context, the heat between these rivals gets turned up in October 2022 when members of NMSU’s basketball team brawl with UNM students on the concourse of Aggie Memorial Stadium during the UNM-NMSU football game in Las Cruces.

According to police reports, a UNM student in that brawl conspires with friends to get one of those NMSU basketball players onto UNM’s campus in the early morning hours before the UNM-NMSU men’s basketball game in Albuquerque so that the student and his friends can beat up the player in retaliation.

The player who is jumped has a gun, as does the student, and a shootout ensues. The UNM student is killed and the NMSU basketball player is shot and injured. The men’s basketball games between the schools are cancelled in the wake of the deadly shooting.

Fast-forward to 2023 when there are hints the rivalry could go away entirely. UNM Athletic Director Eddie Nuñez says the Lobos won’t play in Las Cruces unless NMSU shares its security plans. It’s a new wrinkle, but not a game-changer in the rivalry, per se. The schools do swap plans and games are scheduled.

Another new wrinkle: UNM says if NMSU wants to send its band members to the 2023 rivalry football game in Albuquerque, then the band members’ seats in the stands must come out of NMSU’s allotment of 450 complimentary tickets. Otherwise, it’s $20 a seat. NMSU says band members were always gifted seats — outside of the allotted complimentary tickets — in previous years. Donors step in to pay for the NMSU band to attend, which they do, and enjoy playing the Aggie fight song in a 27-17 victory.

But wait, there’s more. Sometime over the summer, NMSU quarterback Diego Pavia — an Albuquerque native who admittedly has beef with UNM after he wasn’t offered a scholarship by his hometown team — pees on the Lobos mascot emblazoned on the field at UNM’s Indoor Practice Facility. The incident is captured on video and that footage is leaked to media in the days after the rivalry football game.

NMSU head coach Jerry Kill says later that Pavia will be disciplined by not being able to talk to media (Kill also intimates Pavia had to clean toilets with a toothbrush and do community service, though it’s unclear if those were real or imagined punishments).

Kill and Pavia led the NMSU football team to one of its best seasons in program history and a spot in the New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque. Where do the teams in the NM Bowl practice? The Indoor Practice Facility is one option. NMSU does practice there, however, following a 37-10 loss to Fresno State, Kill goes on a rant in the postgame press conference alleging the NM Bowl director had to step in after Nuñez tried to prevent the team from using the facility and Kill also calls for the UNM athletic director to be disciplined for this perceived action. Nuñez responds saying he was no fan of NMSU using the IPF but couldn’t prevent anything even if he wanted to because, contractually, the IPF is the NM Bowl’s facility, not UNM’s, in the week leading up to the bowl game. Days later, Kill, Nuñez and NMSU Athletic Director Mario Moccia get on the phone and decide to move on amicably.

Let’s hope this is all water under the 2023 bridge and that the headlines in 2024 are for the action on the fields and courts of play not the games played behind the scenes.

8. UNM men’s basketball: Last undefeated team

Maybe the single best sports moment of the year in New Mexico came in the first days of 2023.

Of the 350-plus Division I men’s basketball teams, only one team was undefeated on Jan. 2 — the UNM Lobos.

The 2022-23 Lobos, ranked No. 21 in the country at the time, would hold the distinction of being the last undefeated team in the country for fewer than 24 hours, however, falling to Fresno State on Jan. 3.

After starting 14-0, the Lobos went 8-12 down the stretch, including a 83-69 home loss to Utah Valley in the first round of the NIT, leaving fans somewhat bitter and humbled.

7. UNM men’s basketball: Even better this season?

There’s always next season, right? And boy, what a season’s it’s been. The 2023-24 Lobos are again off to a fast start, with a 12-1 record in the 2023 portion of their schedule.

Preseason All-Mountain West guards Jaelen House and Jamal Mashburn have performed as expected — when healthy. And sophomore sensation Donovan Dent has entered the conversation as the team’s best player (his coast-to-coast go-ahead layup to beat rival NMSU in Las Cruces was the play of the year).

Add fab freshmen JT Toppin and Tru Washington, as well as transfer center Nelly Junior Joseph, to the equation, and this team has all the makings of a squad that will not only compete for a conference championship, but will also make some noise in the NCAA Tournament.

Fans are once against crushing on the Cherry and Silver and so are we.

6. Isotopes: Kings of the Duke City

Take a bow, Isotopes, you are kings among Triple-A baseball franchises.

In December, the Isotopes were honored as the 2023 Bob Freitas award winner for best overall Triple-A organization in Minor League Baseball. The award came in the club’s 20th year in the Duke City.

The Isotopes, who weren’t so great on the field in 2023 (finishing with a 68-82 record), were exceptional in gameday operations, leading the Pacific Coast League in average attendance with 7,048 fans per game.

From sporting one of the best venues in the minor leagues, to fun foods to themed days celebrating the area’s culture, the Isotopes are New Mexico True, and we’re happy to jump on the hype bandwagon and celebrate this exemplary sports organization. We hope the new owners only enhance the Isotopes Stadium experience.

5. UNM football: Betting big on Bronco

Exit Danny Gonzales. Enter Bronco Mendenhall.

Some might say the UNM football team exceeded preseason expectations in finishing 4-8 in 2023. Most everyone agrees coach Gonzales raised those expectations, needlessly, early in the season when he guaranteed the team (then 1-2 after a loss at home to rival NMSU) would make a bowl game. The Lobos didn’t go bowling and Gonzales was let go with one year remaining on his five-year contract.

Now, the expectations fall to coach Mendenhall, a former UNM coordinator with successful stints as a head coach at BYU and Virginia before taking the past couple years off to tend to his ranch in Montana.

The university offered Mendenhall the highest salary for a state employee in history ($1.2 million for five years, reportedly) and he accepted.

The UNM football program has endured seven straight losing seasons. Can its 33rd head coach lift the Lobos back to prominence?

4. New Mexico United: New digs

Albuquerque is mad about its professional soccer team, New Mexico United, but not mad enough to support a taxpayer-funded stadium in recent years.

United, which plays its home games in a baseball stadium, would have to leave if it didn’t have its own arena by 2026, per the rules of the USL Championship league.

After years of trying to secure land or financing for its own place, NM United finally got city approval in 2023 to build a privately financed stadium on land in Balloon Fiesta Park, a deal that keeps the franchise in the Land of Enchantment.

While the new stadium is the biggest United news of the year, it’s worth mentioning what happened on the pitch. New Mexico United, which switched coaches midseason, had a middling 10-14-7 record by late September and a 7 percent chance of making the playoffs. Against those odds, the team rattled off three straight wins over squads with winning records and did sneak into the postseason. Though United battled in the first round, the team came up short in Sacramento.

3. Gianna Rahmer: Dominant

No athlete or team in New Mexico was as ascendant as Gianna Rahmer was in high school cross country in 2023. Running for Eldorado High, the eighth-grader (EIGHTH-GRADER!) won every race she entered in New Mexico. Most of her opponents were three, four, even five years older. She creamed them all (our words, not hers — Rahmer would politely compliment her competition if asked).

At the Class 5A state meet at Albuquerque Academy, Rahmer ran away with the, title, recording a time never seen before at any girls state competition. She crossed the line in 16 minutes, 58.01 seconds. No other girls runner was sub-17 minutes. No other girls runner was sub-18 minutes. No other girls runner was sub-19 minutes. The runner-up crossed in 19:02.46.

Next up was regionals just outside of Phoenix, where Rahmer would be matched against the best high school runners in the Southwest. She won that race, too, though by only a second over Isabel Allori from Fort Collins, Colorado. (Next year, Allori will be running for Notre Dame; Rahmer will be entering high school.)

The next race would be the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, featuring the 200 best high school runners in the country. Rahmer, the eighth-grader from Hoover Middle School, finished sixth. She was the only New Mexican in the field, crossing the finish line only a second and a half out of third place.

2. NMSU football: Jerry’s world

The long-suffering NMSU football fan base found its savior in head coach Jerry Kill. In his first year, taking over a scrap-heap of a team, he engineered an amazing season culminating in a Quick Lane Bowl championship in 2022. If he could do the same in 2023, he’d be hailed a saint in Las Cruces, where the Aggies hadn’t been to back-to-back bowls in more than 60 years.

What would Kill do for encore? How about lead the team to wins over rivals UNM and UTEP; to its first win over an SEC school (a 31-10 victory over Auburn on the road that also came with a $1.8 million payday); to 10 wins overall (first time the program won double-digit games since 1960); to its first appearance in a conference title game; and to its first appearance in the New Mexico Bowl.

This was without a doubt the most successful NMSU football team in more than six decades, and Kill was doing it with players no other Division I team tried that hard to recruit.

Speaking of recruiting, NMSU athletics knew other teams might be trying to get Kill on the phone, so donors chipped in and Athletic Director Mario Moccia offered Kill a package worth $1.1 million annually to stay in southern New Mexico.

But Kill didn’t want a pay raise. He wanted a break.

Two days before Christmas, Kill, 62, announced he was done being a head coach. He resigned, ostensibly to spend more time with his granddaughter and to drink margaritas on the beach. Former Aggie Tony Sanchez, once the head coach of UNLV and the NMSU wide receivers coach under Kill, will take over the program.

Don’t expect Jerry Kill’s reputation in Aggieland to take a hit. As Sinatra is to New York, Kill is now to Las Cruces. The coach went out on his own terms, and for that he’ll be revered, forever “king of the hill, top of the list.”

1. NMSU men’s basketball: Complete rebuild

No other college program in the country had as noteworthy a year as the New Mexico State men’s basketball team.

This column has already addressed the deadly shooting in November 2022 but that was but once piece of the absolute trainwreck of a 2022-23 season for this once proud program.

In November, three Aggie basketball players were charged with rape and myriad other sex crimes. Deshawndre Washington, Doctor Bradley and Kim Aiken Jr., all members of the 2022-23 NMSU men’s team, are alleged in civil lawsuits to have taken part in acts intended to humiliate teammates.

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office has been investigating Washington, Bradley and Aiken since the hazing allegations came to light in February. The allegations led not only the cancellation of the team’s season and the firing of head coach Greg Heair, but a multimillion dollar settlement with at least two players who claim they were sexually assaulted. More players, and a team manager, have since filed another civil suit.

In the wake of the hazing allegations within the men’s basketball program, the AG’s office says its turning its attention to a broader look at the university’s policies and procedures and the higher education department has mandated taxpayers won’t be paying AD Mario Moccia’s salary until the investigations are complete (donors are footing the bill for Moccia to stay at work).

Washington, Bradley and Aiken have each pleaded not guilty and the criminal trials are ongoing.

In March 2022, the NMSU men’s basketball program made headlines for upsetting UConn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But less than a year later, the team was in turmoil and soon every single player and coach from the 2022-23 squad would be gone.

NMSU hired coach Jason Hooten to rebuild. The 2023-24 team is 5-9 on the court. But, really, the only wins that matter this season are in the court of public opinion and so far, so quiet (and that’s good).

Previous PPR columns:

• Dec. 24
• Dec. 17
• Dec. 3