New Mexico

New Mexico routs San Diego State, and it’s The Pits

Published

12 months ago

January 12, 2025

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New Mexico routs San Diego State, and it’s The Pits

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Remember the San Diego State basketball team that couldn’t rebound?

It’s back.

The Aztecs struggled mightily in that department earlier this season despite a roster with six players at 6-foot-9 or taller, then seemed to solve the issue during the endless stream of practices over the semester break with an endless stream of rebounding drills. And then Saturday at The Pit happened.

New Mexico wasn’t shooting particularly well, but you don’t need to when you attempt 19 more shots than your opponent because you keep rebounding your misses. The result: a 62-48 New Mexico win on national TV that puts the Aztecs 2½ games behind the Lobos (14-3, 6-0) in the Mountain West race.

There’s still a long way to go, and the schedule softens considerably for the Aztecs over the next month. But they won’t compete for the conference title if they can’t play better a mile above sea level or rebound better (or shoot or take care of the ball) at any elevation.

“We had to beat them at their own game,” Lobos coach Richard Pitino said. “We knew we had to defend and rebound to win the game, because offense was going to be hard to come by. That’s what San Diego State has done for so long, and they’ve obviously won a lot of games.

“It wasn’t going to be a masterpiece, and that’s fine. To me, it was a beautiful win.”

And an equally ugly loss.

Last year’s Aztecs team struggled in the six games at 4,500 feet or above, losing five of them.

This edition didn’t look much better, quickly trailing by double digits coming off a pair of impressive wins at lower elevations – 76-68 at Boise State last Saturday and 67-38 at home against Air Force on Wednesday despite trailing by 12 early.

The “OR” (for offensive rebounds) column on the stat sheet told you all you needed to know: 18-3, Lobos.Second-chance points: 14-1, Lobos.

First-half points: 20, the fewest by the Aztecs in 93 games.

Or look at it this way: Both teams shot 35%, but New Mexico had 67 attempts to SDSU’s 48.

“It’s a recipe for a loss on the road,” coach Brian Dutcher said, “which it was.”

The Aztecs (10-4, 3-2) briefly pulled within five points in the opening moments of the second half, then surrendered two offensive boards on the next possession that the Lobos converted into a wide-open corner 3-pointer.

Soon, SDSU was down 20 and that was pretty much that.

As the final seconds ticked off, New Mexico students chanted, “Who’s your daddy?”

“The special thing about basketball is that basketball is just like life,” said Jared Coleman-Jones, who had 10 points and four rebounds. “Some days you don’t have the best day, and today we didn’t have the best day on the glass.

“We’ve got to take that as grown men and we have to get back in the lab. … That’s one thing we’re going to have to emphasize – a lot – for the whole season: the glass, offensively and defensively. Because that wins us games.”

Part of the issue was scheme. If you take one thing away on defense, you expose yourself in other areas and the question becomes whether your opponent can exploit them.

The Aztecs, as they often do, opted to switch all ball screens in an effort to prevent New Mexico point guard Donovan Dent – the front-runner for Mountain West player of the year averaging 19.3 points and 6.9 assists – from turning the corner and getting straight-line drives to the basket. That much worked, at least in the first half, holding Dent to four points.

But that meant an Aztecs guard was now switched onto a Lobos big. And to do that, the guard defends in front to deter the easy post entry and invite the far more difficult over-the-top pass.

The problem: The 6-10, 240-pound Nigerian center now has inside position under the basket for the rebound on a missed shot against your 6-3, 175-pound guard.

New Mexico’s Mustapha Amzil had 11 rebounds. Nelly Junior Joseph and Filip Boronvicanin had nine each. Guard Tru Washington had five. No SDSU player had more than four.

“For the most part, I thought we did a good job taking Dent out of the game in the halfcourt,” Dutcher said. “He’s a dynamic player. But you give and take with some of these defensive game plans. At the end of the day, it’s a team that’s averaging close to 85 points per game. We hold them to 62 in their building and they shoot 36%, but then they get 18 offensive rebounds and second-chance opportunities.”

Second-chance scoring: 14-1, Lobos.

“We did talk about it,” said Pitino, whose team has won seven straight since a Dec. 7 overtime loss against New Mexico State. “They were switching. We felt like that would be an advantage, and our guys really took advantage of it.”

Of course, the Aztecs weren’t much better at the other end, either, in what was statistically their worst offensive performance of the season.

They didn’t make a perimeter shot until 3:43 left in the first half. They had nine first-half turnovers. They shot five air balls. They missed 13 layups. They were 9 of 17 at the line. Miles Byrd had 14 points but needed 13 shots. Fellow starting guards Nick Boyd and BJ Davis were a combined 2 of 14. And when they did miss, they couldn’t chase down the rebound.

“We’re going to miss shots, but we have to get second-chance opportunities,” said Dutcher, whose team had 15 and 24 offensive boards in the previous two games, both wins.

Of their three Saturday, two were “team rebounds” off a foul or out of bounds. They had only one player actually grab an offensive board, and that was by Byrd after Boyd missed a fast-break layup. And then he missed the follow.

The only difference from last year’s 88-70 spanking on national TV at The Pit was that they didn’t blow a 12-point lead.

They led 2-0 and 4-2 this year before the Lobos erupted for a 12-0 run and never really looked back.

It was always going to be big ask, though, taking such a young team (without injured senior guard Reese Waters) into The Pit and mile-high elevation for the first time. Seven members of the nine-man rotation had never experienced the crazed Lobos fans, and four had never played at altitude (and only two had ever played extended minutes above 4,500 feet).

They looked the part: sluggish, discombobulated, out of rhythm, out of sorts.

“You get that first wind, you get that second wind, it’s that third wind that you start feeling it,” said Coleman-Jones, whose previous stops were in the lowlands at Northwestern and Middle Tennessee. “You start feeling the air get a little thin in your lungs. When you try to sprint back, you’ve got a piano on your back.”

Notable

Next up: a pair of home games against Colorado State (Tuesday) and UNLV (Saturday) … The team flew commercial to Albuquerque and, for the first time this season, took a charter flight home given the quick turnaround before Colorado State … Byrd tweaked an ankle with 8:49 to go when he crashed into the courtside advertising boards. He returned but did not score again … Miles Heide played after sitting out Wednesday’s game with the flu but only for seven minutes. Demarshay Johnson Jr., also out Wednesday with the flu, was on the trip but did not suit up …

Dent had a more productive second half thanks to some fast-break baskets and free throws, finishing with 16 points and five assists. The Lobos, though, were only plus-seven points with him on the floor … New Mexico shot only 6 of 28 (21.4%) on 3s … The Lobos also had big advantages in fast-break scoring (13-2), points off turnovers (9-1) and points in the paint (32-20) … After last year’s highly criticized officiating performance from a crew with little or no experience at The Pit, a veteran crew was assigned Saturday: Kelly Pfeiffer, Larry Scirotto and Deldre Carr.

Originally Published: January 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM PST

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New Mexico

Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”

Published

5 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”

A 10-year-old New Mexico boy says Timothy Busfield “touched his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area” during production on The Cleaning Lady, an Albuquerque District Attorney–approved arrest warrant issued today says.

“In my training and experience, pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets to tickle and touch SL on his penis and buttocks, masking it as play,” the warrant from Albuquerque Police Officer Marvin Brown asserts. “He would invite the family to off-set gatherings, with his wife buying Christmas gifts to foster closeness, making SL feel special and dependent—classic grooming to erode boundaries, isolate the victim, and silence suspicions by blending abuse into normalcy.”

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Filled with accounts from two brothers of their alleged repeated experiences with the Thirtysomething alum, who was a director on the now shuttered Élodie Yung-led Fox drama from Warner Bros TV, the document charges Busfield with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse. It is unclear at this point if the Emmy winner has been arrested and booked by Albuquerque Police Department.

If found guilty of the charges, Busfield could face a minimum of three years behind bars.

In fact, the 68-year-old, who was accused but never charged in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, could be looking at a lot longer sentence in the Land of Enchantment.

Under New Mexico statutes, prison time in sex crimes against minors leans heavily on context and circumstances in the degrees of punishment they hand out. That time and felony class can go up substantially if the crime involves children under 13 years of age — as it allegedly does here.

Named as “SL” and “VL” in the warrant, the two 2014-born boys appeared on The Cleaning Lady over multiple seasons before being let go for having aged out of the role, I hear. However, in a Nov. 3, 2025 phone interview with Busfield in the warrant, The West Wing vet told investigating Officer Brown that he “the lead actress, Elodie Young” informed him over a year ago that “the mother of SL and VL (sic) that she wanted revenge, and I’m going to get my revenge on Tim Busfield for not bringing her kids back for the final season.”

Courtesy of Fox

In interviews conducted with SL and VL on Halloween last year by a “forensic child interviewer,” and observed by Officer Brown, today’s arrest warrant says that the former told them the alleged abuse by Busfield started when he was 7 years old and on The Cleaning Lady.

“SL said that Tim touched him three to four times on his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area over his clothing,” the 12-page arrest warrant states of what is cited as a second incident with Busfield, very similar to a previous incident. “SL said he was very afraid of Tim and was relieved when he was off set. SL said he was afraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and he feared Tim would get mad at him. SL did advise that Tim touched him while he was only on set filming in Albuquerque.”

SL now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, the warrant says. SL disclosing having nightmares about the director touching him and waking up scared,” the document adds.

It goes on: “VL explained that Mr. Tim started touching them for the first two years, and he did not want to say anything, because he did not want to be mean to him. Therefore, VL did not say anything. VL said Mr. Tim would start touching him with his hands about his body while they were filming in the ‘house’. VL advised that it was about his body, but did not disclose that he was touched on his buttocks or penis area. VL said he did not like being touched, but did not say anything because he did not want to get in trouble.”

The matter actually first came to the cops’ attention in late 2024 when a doctor from University of New Mexico Hospital contacted the Albuquerque Police Department in regards to a “sexual abuse investigation.”

Noting that the boys’ father had been advised to go to the hospital by a local law firm, today’s warrant details: Officer Osborn talked with both VL and SL, who did not disclose any sexual contact at this time. However, both boys advised that Timothy Busfield, whom they referred to as ‘Uncle Tim’, would tickle them on the stomach and legs. Neither boy cared for the tickling. Officer Osborn contacted Detective Michael Brown with the Crimes Against Children Unit and determined that the case did not meet their acceptance criteria at this time.”

The matter came back to the police’s attention and became a much greater priority after the boys’ mother “advised that on 09/02/2025, SL reported to his counselor that Timothy Busfield touched his penis and bottom.”

In that same telephone conversation with Busfield in the weeks before Thanksgiving last year, the NYC-based filmmaker also dropped to Officer Brown that producers Warner Bros TV had conducted its own probe into allegations against him after SAG-AFTRA received an anonymous complaint in early 2025 of an incident on The Cleaning Lady set in December 2024. After writing up a search warrant for WB (which today’s warrant seems to mistakenly say occurred on “10/03/2025”) and several correspondences with WB attorney Richard Wessling at law firm Proskauer, Officer Brown on NYE last year got his hands on the March 31, 2025 external report put together by the LA office of Solomon Law.

Specifically the report, which saw Busfield suspended during the probe, looked into claims from the hotline caller that there was evidence of Busfield “tickling and caressing the head and body of minor boys” while working on the Albuquerque-filmed Cleaning Lady. Upon his own reading of the document, Officer Brown says in Friday’s warrant that Solomon investigator “Christina McGovern was not able to talk with anyone who would support evidence that Timothy Busfield engaged in this behavior.”

Working from what now seems to be limited accusations, the WBTV investigation viewed Busfield as “exonerated,” sources tell me.

In a statement to Deadline tonight, the Channing Dungey-led WBTV said: “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions. We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”

As well as speaking to the boys’ mother and father (who seem to have instigated and then ceased a civil suit on this), plus some Cleaning Lady production assistants and Make-up and Hair department staffers, today’s warrant also details a brief back-and-forth between Officer Brown and the series star Yung, who was a producer too.

“On 11/5/2025, I contacted Elodie Yung to set up an interview. Elodie agreed to meet with me at the Northwest Substation on 11/7/2025,” Officer Brown notes in his fairly comprehensive affidavit that e Albuquerque Assistant DA Savannah Brandenburg-Koch signed off on today. “I did initially advise Elodie that Tim Busfield gave me her name and said that she may have information about this case. On 11/06/2025, Elodie left me a voicemail declining to speak with me and said that she does not want to be involved with the investigation and that she would not have any information that could assist in this case.”

Busfield’s agents at Innovative Artists did not respond late Friday to Deadline’s request for comment on the arrest warrant and the charges against their client.

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New Mexico

New Mexico Public Education Department faces $35 million shortfall

Published

17 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico Public Education Department faces million shortfall

The New Mexico Public Education Department is facing a $35 million deficit, which it attributes to overpayments made to Gallup-McKinley County Schools, a claim the district disputes, arguing they are being wrongly blamed for the state’s funding mismanagement.

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