LAS CRUCES ? Easy come, easy go.
It took six games into the season for NMSU to lose at home ? and four years for the UNM men's basketball team to sweep the season series.
Now it's over. On Tuesday, for the first time since 2004, the Lobos beat the Aggies, 68-66, at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces.
After being harassed all night in the paint ? and being swatted clear across the stadium on two occasions ? senior Daniel Faris had the last laugh.
With the Aggies up 66-65 with 39 seconds to go, Faris took a dish from Tony Danridge and threw up an ugly shot that got smudged between the backboard and the rim.
And then it dropped.
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"I've been a shooter my whole life, and I've wish I could've shot like that," head coach Steve Alford said, joking.
As for the Aggies, all head coach Marvin Menzies could do was gasp in disgust.
"They fought and they fought, and fought, but they just couldn't get over the hump at the very end," he said.
Back and forth; forth and back; side-to-side; up and down ? on Tuesday at the Pan American Center, the Lobos and Aggies left no angle unexploited.
Despite holding the Aggies' leading scorer, Jahmar Young, to just seven points in the game and scoreless in the first half, the Lobos held the trimmest of leads at 30-28 by the break.
Young entered the night averaging 18.1 points per game, including a 30-point explosion against Loyola Marymount on Sunday. But while Young was struggling to find his rhythm, Jonathan Gibson paced the Aggies with 22, 13 coming in the second half.
And the two-point lead the Lobos held at half's end ended up being the two points of separation UNM needed. Both teams were dead even in the second half, scoring 38 points apiece.
Still, the Aggies had their chances.
With the Lobos up 67-66 with 20 seconds left in the game, NMSU's Hernst Laroche drove the lane, pulled up and shook free of UNM's Roman Martinez, who tumbled to the hardwood, leaving Laroche with space aplenty to let it fly. Laroche missed. At the other end, Dairese Gary hit one of two free throws to put UNM up 68-66 with 14 seconds left.
"What's the word I'm looking for?" Menzies said. "I got to give ? credit, that difficult, two-syllable word ? to Steve and his crew."
Alford, too, was giving credit ? to Danridge. The forward was the reason Young managed just seven points.
"Tony was tremendous tonight defensively," Alford said emphatically. "He wore (Young) down a little bit at the offensive end. I thought he was terrific on Jahmar. To hold him to seven points is a great effort, because Jahmar is very talented scorer."
Danridge got his on the offensive side of things, as well, contributing 12 points. In his first career double-double, Faris led the Lobos with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Martinez added 16.
Martinez hit back-to-back trey balls to put the Lobos up 46-41 with about 13 minutes to go. Nate Garth buried another 3-pointer to give the Lobos their largest lead at 49-41 with 12:32 to go in the second half. =
Back-to-back buckets by Young ? one after NMSU's Wendell McKines pinned Daniel Faris' shot on the backboard ? pulled the Aggies within two, 52-50.
The lead changed eight times, but the last time it did, the scoreboard read 68-66 Lobos. And the 10, 285 fans on hand to witness it had to shoehorn out of Pan Am disheartened.
"We came into this game knowing it was going to be a war," Martinez said. "And at the end, we had to be tough."
