It was an electric night for Imani Warren, but not for New Mexico State women’s basketball team.
A career-high 29 points from the junior guard couldn’t save the Aggies (4-9, 0-1 Conference USA), who fell 67-62 in their conference opener against Liberty (7-5, 1-0) on Friday, Jan. 2, at home. NM State held a 42-37 lead heading into the fourth quarter but was outscored 25-20 by the visitors in the final frame.
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The bulk of the fourth quarter was tight as the Aggies aimed to hold onto their lead. But while leading 54-51, NM State saw the game slip away as LU’s Avery Mills sparked an 11-0 run inside the final three minutes. Mills accounted for eight of those 11 points, including two 3-pointers, flipping the scoreboard to a 62-54 Liberty lead. NM State fought hard in the final seconds to close the gap but couldn’t climb back.
Lucía Yenes, the Aggies’ leading scorer at 14 points per game heading into Friday, also had a productive outing with 16 points. However, she fouled out with the game tied at 54-54 with 1:47 to go, a critical moment that contributed to NM State’s late-game spiral.
Aggies coach Jody Adams believes her team’s offensive execution came to a “stall” in the final few minutes. NM State struggled to find open shots, and the lack of production outside of Warren and Yenes came back to haunt the Aggies once the latter fouled out.
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“I just thought that we could have gotten better shots, and that’s just the poise and patience of working and trusting what we’re running,” Adams said. “I thought the majority of the time, we had it in their hands. But there were a couple of open shots that our players, if it wasn’t Imani or Lucía shooting for us, those shots have got to go down for us.”
Adams also believes the Aggies could’ve dug deeper defensively, specifically in one-on-one matchups. Warren chalks that down to a lack of communication between teammates.
“That’s the big part of it,” Warren said. “Us communicating to each other for screens or just being a help side. Just helping off each other. That’s our main focus.”
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With CUSA play officially underway for NM State, it has the conference’s worst winning percentage at .308. The Aggies rank among the bottom three in their conference for points per game, points allowed per game, total rebounds per game and free-throw percentage.
NM State has a winnable contest against Delaware (6-7, 0-1), which is tied for CUSA’s third-worst winning percentage at .462, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 4, at home. With no wins over Division I teams in almost a month, the Aggies will have to rewrite the drawing board entirely if they hope to save their season in conference play.
“(It’s about) really staying focused on us. Really looking in the mirror each and every day,” Adams said. “Was I a great teammate today? Did I do my role? How am I getting better? So just staying focused on individual improvement, but because that’s going to help the growth of the team and us improving as we go. Every game for us is just that extra experience of being out there, and just having that calm and that poised way.”
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: NMSU falls to Liberty in CUSA opener despite Imani Warren’s big night
