Las Vegas – With a wave to the game officials, New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay left the Mountain West Conference after his Lobos bowed out of the conference tournament.
Called a first-round game by conference officials, the Lobos tried to extend McKay’s coaching days at New Mexico by at least another couple of days, but Texas Christian, led by Brent Hackett’s 24 points, pulled away over the last seven minutes to win 62-54 at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Instead of playing into Thursday’s quarterfinals against conference champion Brigham Young, the Lobos went home and the Horned Frogs got the call. McKay already knew his fate, decided a couple of weeks ago when New Mexico officials announced he was not returning.
“I don’t like to lose and obviously I would have liked to continue,” McKay said. “I’ve known my fate for awhile in terms of my tenure at the University of New Mexico. I’m thankful for my five years there. Tomorrow is a new day and I’m going to live tomorrow’s 24 to the fullest.”
New Mexico finished the season 15-17.
Back in Vegas
The MWC is back in Las Vegas after a three-year hiatus.
In between stops in Sin City, the tournament was in Denver. But the conference felt spectator interest lagged at the Pepsi Center.
San Diego State coach Steve Fisher said league members wanted to go back to Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center, even though it means home-court advantage for UNLV.
“Everybody wanted to move,” Fisher said. “In a perfect world you’d prefer to have it at a neutral site. But Denver didn’t have the pizazz. But there’s a huge advantage for Las Vegas in playing at home.”
Fisher should have liked Denver. Last year, his Aztecs became the first MWC team in seven years to win the regular-season title as well as the tournament.
There was some buzz among the coaches about a possible need to change the schedule of the men’s tournament to match the slate of the women’s tournament.
In the men’s tournament, TCU defeated New Mexico on Tuesday and faces league champion BYU in Thursday’s quarterfinals. But in the women’s tournament, Air Force has to come back today for a quarterfinal game against league champion BYU. Some of the men’s teams coaches would prefer to skip the day off in between.
Men on the way
Air Force and CSU practiced at home Tuesday afternoon, then departed for Las Vegas. The Falcons face Wyoming in Thursday’s quarterfinals at 3:30 p.m. and the Rams take on San Diego State at 9:30 p.m.
CSU coach Dale Layer on center Jason Smith after his selection to the all-conference first team:
“Jason has made a really nice step up in every way – his poise, his toughness and his rebounding. He was in foul trouble a bit of the time and that hurt us. But I’m thrilled with his development.”
