Fresno State
New Mexico State
Olekaibe's 23 Nets Career-High, Dogs Fall
1/8/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
LAS CRUCES, N.M. - In their third game in a span of six days, the Bulldogs dropped their first WAC contest of the season despite a career-high 23 points off the hands of freshman guard Kevin Olekaibe with a 80-68 loss to New Mexico State on Saturday night.
"We didn't shoot the ball very well tonight and got ourselves in foul trouble," head coach Steve Cleveland said. "We can focus on the positive that we got a split on the road in our conference, which is difficult to do, but we wanted to win this game and didn't get the job done.
Olekaibe's outing featured the netting of five 3-pointers and nine field goals over 26 minutes to become the Bulldogs' leading scorer through the first 14 games at an average of 11.2 points per game.
The Dogs kept the tally close early and responded from a three point deficit with 8:39 left in the first half by recording a 9-0 run to move ahead 28-22 with 6:02 before the break.
Yet, NMSU regrouped and powered to halftime with an impressive 15-3 sprint over the next six minutes for a 37-31 at the half.
The Aggies never looked back as they took advantage of getting Fresno State in foul trouble. The Bulldogs' 6-10 center Greg Smith fouled out exactly midway through the second half at the 10:00 mark.
NMSU's Troy Gillenwater scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead four Aggies in double figures. Hernst Laroche and Hamidu Rahman added 11 points each, and Tshilidzi Nephawe had 10 for the Aggies (8-9, 2-1 WAC), who shot 58 percent from the field and won for the sixth time in their last eight games.
Fresno State (7-7, 3-1) dropped just their second game over the past eight games. It also marked the first loss this year when the Dogs won the rebounding battle (32-30, including 15 offensive rebounds for Fresno State).
On the night, New Mexico State owned the charity stripe and used the opportunity of 23 more free throw attempts than Fresno State to fuel the Aggies' 12-point win.
POST GAME NOTES:
-Fresno State falls to 7-7 on the season and 3-1 in WAC play
-NMSU improved to 8-9 on the season and 2-1 in WAC play.
-Fresno State's freshman guard Kevin Olekaibe scored a career-high 23 points.
-Fresno State won the rebounding battle 32-30, including 15 offensive rebounds to NMSU's five offensive rebounds.
"We Are Your Team!" --- Fresno State returns to the Save Mart Center on Saturday at 7 p.m. against defending WAC regular season champion Utah State. Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.com and a special discount package for $32.99 that includes two tickets, a parking spot, a $10 concession credit and 20% off at the Bulldog Shop can be found at the two Fresno and one Clovis Costco locations.
