New Mexico State showed improvement on offense after halftime.
One problem though — so did Middle Tennessee.
Thursday’s contest at the Pan American Center was a tale of two halves. The first half was a defensive one, with both teams shooting below 34% from the field. The Aggies failed to make a 3-pointer on four tries, while the Blue Raiders only made one of 13 attempts from beyond the arc.
The Blue Raiders (19-9, 10-5 Conference USA) had better offensive fortunes than the Aggies (15-13, 8-7) in the second half, shooting a staggering 65.2% after halftime with 44 points. NM State had 38 points on 41.7% shooting in the second half, but its defense just couldn’t keep up in a 71-66 defeat.
MTSU found a way past its 3-point shooting struggles, going 6-for-12 from that range in the second half.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
"I don't think we gave the effort on defense that we needed to," said senior guard Christian Cook, who scored a team-high 24 points. "I think we played really good last week on the road, and I think we kind of let that get to us, and we came out flat, and then that led to us not playing as good as we needed to."
More:Fanta Gassama boosting NM State women's basketball in CUSA play after injury return
More:NMSU record goalscorer Loma McNeese ready to start pro career in Iceland
MTSU's Camryn Weston was the main beneficiary, scoring 19 points in the second half to end with 30. He drained the Blue Raiders' final four 3-pointers of the game, including two daggers with under 3:40 to play.
Aggies coach Jason Hooten believes Weston's 3-pointers had partly to do with MTSU's Essam Mostafa's commanding attention inside (he scored 13 points in the second half), but also credited his talent.
"Their best player doesn't even start," Hooten said. "You just gotta have something over there that's gonna get it done, and we didn't do that tonight."
The loss snaps NM State's three-game winning streak as it falls to 3-5 at home in conference play. Hooten expressed his disappointment at the Aggies' home crowd and student section on Thursday, believing it contributed to their lack of "fire."
Some of the 5,253 spectators seemed to come only for a performance of young cheerleaders at halftime, as plenty were seen leaving after its conclusion.
Hooten isn't making it an excuse, though, and stressed that NM State must win their final home game against Western Kentucky (16-12, 7-8) regardless of fan support.
"I coached at a place where they averaged 500 (fans) a game (Sam Houston), and we won at home," Hooten said. "We just gotta figure that part out. I don't know what it is. Whether we gotta go get a hotel and spend the night like football, I don't know, but we need to play better here. We got one left, and that's a big one. We need to win that one."
Role players struggle in defeat
NM State got good performances from its best players, with Cook's 24 points and 16 from forward Peter Filipovity. However, Hooten believes the rest of his team didn't do well in complementing them.
The Aggies got 26 combined from players not named Cook or Filipovity. All struggled, including senior guards Zawdie Jackson (five points on 1-for-12 shooting) and Dionte Bostick (zero points in 16 minutes). Filipovity came off the bench for his points, but the five others who did scored six points or less. Graduate student forward Robert Carpenter had six, but on 3-for-11 shooting.
Hooten also said they weren't much better defensively, either.
"We're not getting a lot of offense from them, but defensively, we weren't very good," Hooten said. "Not to name names, but we just have some guys who really have been changing games by coming in and playing good defensively and doing what we needed to in the scouting report, and we didn't get that tonight. We made a lot of really dumb mistakes that we haven't been making."
Some of them may have been sick. Hooten says at least five Aggies now have a cold and are taking medicine as Filipovity continues recovering from an illness.
Blue Raiders strike in transition
An emphasis in NM State's scouting report this week was stopping MTSU in transition. It couldn't do that well.
The Blue Raiders scored 19 fast break points on Thursday compared to only 10 for the Aggies. 11 of them came in the first half as MTSU stayed close with NM State, helping it only trail 28-27 at halftime.
Cook says it's atypical for NM State to give up that many fast break points, and both he and Hooten say it needs to improve against a Hilltoppers team that scored 101 against the Aggies on Feb. 1.
"We talked about stopping them in transition. We didn't do that," Hooten said. "It was just disappointing."
This story was updated to add a clarification that NM State is 3-5 at home in conference play only.