It is 100 years since the US government created the world’s first protected wilderness, at the prompting of a visionary conservationist, Aldo Leopold. Encompassing some 1,190 square miles of forested mountains and desert canyons in southern New Mexico, the Gila Wilderness is not a visitor-friendly national park, said Elaine Glusac in The New York Times, but a forbidding natural region, remote and resistant to entry.
Indeed, few places in the US are so well guarded against the selfie-seeking crowds. There are no roads or “artificial trails” – an absence that has led to “countless tales of lost hikers, encounters with poison oak and arduous river crossings”. And the wilderness itself lies within a larger conservation area, the 5,196 square mile Gila National Forest, where the only roads are steep and winding, making access yet more difficult.
I stayed in Silver City, on the edge of the National Forest, which makes a good base for exploring. From there, it’s a 90-minute drive to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. A complex of 40 rooms built into caves high up on some “amber-hued” cliffs, it was created by a group of hunter-gatherers, the Mogollon people, in the 13th century. Today, it is the area’s “top attraction”, along with the many pictographs they drew on a nearby rock wall – abstract figures and symbols whose meaning is “lost to time”. The cliff dwellings stand at a good entry point into the wilderness – if you can ford the Gila River. On my visit, it was in spate, and I gave up.
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The next day, however, I entered the wilderness at Rocky Canyon, on horseback, in the company of two Forest Service employees. Exploring for eight hours, we passed through a remarkable range of habitats – from desert to alpine – and saw “intriguing” caves, sculptural stacks of boulders, and backcountry hot springs. And while none of the area’s bears, wolves or mountain lions put in an appearance, I spotted many “smaller wonders”, including Montezuma quail, with their “distinct polka-dot breasts”.
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It’s not just the NCAA Tournament that’s down to the final four teams, but the NIT also has just four teams remaining in its bracket. The semifinals are set to begin on Thursday night, with the first of two games being a showdown between New Mexico from the Mountain West and Tulsa from the American.
Let’s dive into the odds and my best bet for Thursday night’s matchup, with a berth in the NIT final on the line.
New Mexico vs. Tulsa Odds, Spread, and Total
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Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Spread
New Mexico -3.5 (-118)
Tulsa +3.5 (-104)
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Moneyline
New Mexico -178
Tulsa +146
Total
OVER 161.5 (-110)
UNDER 161.5 (-110)
New Mexico vs. Tulsa How to Watch
Date: Thursday, April 2
Game Time: 7:00 pm ET
Venue: Hinkle Fieldhouse
How to Watch (TV): ESPN
New Mexico Record: 26-10
Tulsa Record: 29-7
New Mexico vs. Tulsa Betting Trends
Tulsa is 1-5 ATS in its last six games
The OVER is 8-3 in Tulsa’s last 11 games
Tulsa is 7-3 ATS in its last 10 games as an underdog
New Mexico is 5-0-1 ATS in its last six games
The OVER is 13-7 in New Mexico’s last 20 games
New Mexico vs. Tulsa Key Player to Watch
David Green, F – Tulsa Golden Hurricanes
If Tulsa wants to pull off the upset and win this game, they need David Green to step up in a big way. He’s the team’s leading scorer, averaging 15.7 points per game, but he scored just five points in the NIT quarterfinal. Let’s see if he can bounce back with a strong performance tonight.
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New Mexico vs. Tulsa Prediction and Pick
Tulsa has already beaten one Mountain West team in the NIT, taking down UNLV by a score of 77-66, and I think they can at least cover as underdogs against New Mexico.
The Golden Hurricanes are one of the best shooting teams in college basketball, ranking 25th in effective field goal percentage. Well above New Mexico, which comes in at 70th in that metric. Tulsa is also a solid team defensively, ranking 106th in defensive efficiency.
The Mountain West continues to be an overrated conference. Their regular season and tournament champion lost in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Colorado State and Wyoming both lost in the first round of the NIT, and UNLV fell in the second round to Tulsa.
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I’m going to continue to follow my strategy of fading the Mountain West in postseason tournaments.
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Pick: Tulsa +3.5 (-104) via FanDuel
Create a new FanDuel Sportsbook account, and you can get$300 in bonus bets back on losing bets every day for 10 days. Download the FanDuel app and deposit a minimum of $5 to claim your FanDuel promo codeoffer today.
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Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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NMSU introduces Adeniyi Amadou as its next women’s basketball coach
Adeniyi Amadou is the next NMSU women’s basketball coach. Hear from him, NMSU President Valerio Ferme and NMSU AD Joe Fields on the move.
New Mexico State’s women’s basketball team has entered a new era with the hiring of Adeniyi Amadou as its new coach. He’ll try to take the Aggies back to the NCAA Tournament, where they appeared multiple times in the 1980s and 2010s.
NM State has six NCAA Tournaments, four conference tournament championships (all won as part of the Western Athletic Conference) and eight regular-season conference championships to its name in women’s basketball. The Aggies have reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament once in 1988, although that was when teams could receive first-round byes if they were a high enough seed (they were a No. 6 seed then and lost to Washington in their first NCAA Tournament game).
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MORE AGGIES SPORTS: How NMSU football warded off Power Four teams for HBCU star running back James Jones
Let’s look back on some of those seasons. Here are the three best March Madness moments in NM State’s women’s basketball history:
First conference tournament win (2015)
NM State began its WAC dynasty in 2015.
The Aggies won their first-ever conference tournament in women’s basketball in the 2015 WAC Tournament. NM State was the regular-season conference champion and earned the No. 1 seed and a bye to the semifinals of the WAC Tournament as a result. The Aggies went 2-0 to secure a conference tournament championship.
Bolstered by 22 points from Sasha Weber and 16 rebounds from Brianna Freeman, NM State pulled out a 79-75 overtime win in the semifinals over Seattle. Another 20 points from Weber helped the Aggies win the WAC Tournament championship game 70-52 over UT-Pan American (which has since merged with UT-Brownsville to form UTRGV) and reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. Freeman was named the WAC Tournament MVP.
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SEE THE TOP MEN’S MOMENTS: NMSU’s top 5 March Madness moments, from the Final Four to besting UConn
Three in a row (2017)
The Aggies would then make it three consecutive WAC Tournament championships two years later.
NM State entered the 2017 WAC Tournament with a perfect 14-0 conference record, and it kept that unbeaten run going. The Aggies defeated UMKC (now referred to as Kansas City) 71-63 in the semifinals thanks to four players scoring in double figures, including Moriah Mack’s 21 points in 40 minutes of action. NM State then took down Seattle 63-48 in the championship game off the back of a double-double from Tamera William at 19 points and 10 rebounds.
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Mack won the WAC Tournament MVP that year. She scored 18 points against the Redhawks in the championship game. It was the third and final WAC Tournament championship for then-coach Mark Trakh before he joined USC.
Resilience in overtime (2019)
Another regular-season conference championship wasn’t enough in 2018, as the Aggies lost to Seattle in the semifinals. But NM State got back on its perch in the WAC in the following year.
Guided by second-year coach Brooke Atkinson, the Aggies needed two overtime victories to win the 2019 WAC Tournament after defeating Chicago State in the quarterfinals (the WAC Tournament went from seven to eight teams starting in 2018, with no byes to the semifinals). The first one came in a 91-80 win over UMKC after NM State allowed just five points in overtime. The Aggies were forced into double overtime during the championship game against UTRGV, which ended with a 76-73 win.
Gia Pack scored 86 points across the WAC Tournament, including 36 against UMKC, to win the tournament’s MVP. Brooke Salas scored a team-high 29 points in the championship game.
