It wasn't pretty

The Duke-New Mexico State game was over pretty quickly although we missed the first half due to thinking and reading the game was going to start at five o'clock. As we tuned in, the halftime score was 47-26 (the final score was 86-61).

The Dookies seem re-energized, both much faster and a better outside-shooting team than last year. Being undersized proved to be no problem for Coach K's squad.

But we're still a bit surprised that the Aggie center tandem of Martin Iti and Hattila Passos were negligible factors in the game.

The foremost factor in the Aggie downfall was a lack of offensive consistency. The NMSU offense play was in sputter mode, looking solid one moment but followed by a number of possessions out of sync. This often led to Blue Devil steals and breakaways.

Stalwart Justin Hawkins scored 16 and added 11 rebounds to earn a double-double for NMSU. He just may give Utah State backcourter Jaycee Carroll some competition for WAC most valuable player. Fred Peete was more off than on.