Allen, Aggies, sweep aside talk, walk over Lopes 82-66

All night long they tried to get under his skin.

With chants. With posters. With just about anything they could.

Once the ball was tipped, though, Teddy Allen and the Aggies put up, making GCU shut up. 

Shaking off the unending comments and chants of the venomous Havocs, Allen showed them - and, once again, the rest of the WAC - that actions speak louder than words by torching the defending WAC champions for a 30-point, 10-rebound double-double as the Aggies thrashed Grand Canyon, 82-66, Saturday night.

FIRST HALF
• Holland Woods got the hosts on the scoreboard first by splashing a jumper in the paint 50 seconds into the game, but that proved to be the only lead the Lopes would enjoy.
• Johnny McCants and Jabari Rice began an unrelenting barrage from downtown by splashing back-to-back three-pointers which accounted for all of NM State's points during its 6-0 run to answer Woods' mid-range job.
• Once McCants' trifecta rattled home 1:11 into the tilt, NM State never trailed again.
• A pair of free throws off the mitts of Woods cut the Aggies' lead to 6-5 with 16:22 to go in the frame, but the Aggies answered with a backbreaking 10-0 run to suck much of the energy out of the building. All of those points were accounted for by the tandem of Clayton Henry and Mike Peake, each of whom drilled a triple through that surge.
• Henry's downtown splashdown hiked the visitors' lead to 16-5 with 12:57 to go and the Lopes couldn't pull close than six points away for the rest of the half.
• Following Mario McKinney Jr's fast-break layup with 10:23 to go, the Aggies' lead stood at 21-8. Allen drained a difficult runner in the lane with 9:36 left which pushed the visitors' edge to 23-9 but that was when the Lopes started their run.
• Jovan Blacksher Jr., came out firing, kick-starting an 8-0 run by the home team with an assist on a Woods three-pointer before splashing his own trifecta which trimmed the Aggies' lead to 23-17 with 8:50 left.
• It was then that Allen made his presence known. NM State's top point-producer quieted a noisy pro-GCU crowd by connecting on back-to-back three-pointers which swelled the Aggies' advantage back to double-digits, 29-17, with 8:15 on the clock.
• Jabari Rice's impressive off-the-glass runner with 1:35 to go hit nothing but net, pushing NM State's lead to 40-24. Rice hit again, this time at the first-half buzzer, and his step-back mid-range jumper sent the visitors to their locker room with a 42-28 edge.
• NM State, quite simply, made shots in the first frame while the Lopes didn't. The Aggies connected on 53.3-percent (16-of-30) of their field goal tries including an 8-of-15 mark (53.3-percent) from long range.
• GCU, meanwhile, threw up brick after brick and finished the first half with a 10-of-30 (33.3-percent) shooting clip. That included a 3-of-14 (21.4-percent) showing from three-point distance.

SECOND HALF
• Using the shifty abilities of Blacksher Jr., the Lopes tried their best to get back into the thick of things. He and Woods helmed an 8-0 GCU run which trimmed NM State's once double-digit lead all the way down to eight, 59-51, with 12:32 left.
• With the Lopes getting to the foul line by driving it inside time and time again, the Aggies decided to do the same thing. Clayton Henry got hacked on a drive to the tin and started a 5-0 run with a pair of free throw makes. From that point on, the Aggies' lead never dipped below 10 points for the rest of the night.
• Keeping their foot on the gas pedal, the Aggies' lead grew to as many as 20 points, 78-58, following Allen's fifth and final three-pointer of the night at the 5:20 mark.
• Shutting the Lopes' crowd up in the final frame, Allen amassed 18 of his game-high 30 on a 5-of-11 shooting clip. Though both team's shot north of 50-percent (52-percent for NM State and 52.4-percent for GCU), NM State's well-timed runs ensured things never got too close.

KEY PERFORMERS/STATISTICS OF NOTE
• The frontrunner for WAC Player of the Year, Allen put on for his city for the first time in his collegiate career. For the third-straight game, the high-scoring guard showed off his scoring and rebounding abilities in a big way by generating a 30-point, 10-rebound double-double to go along with a game-high five assists.
• Allen posted his third-straight double-double as well as his eighth-straight game of 20 or more points. He's the first Aggie to submit three consecutive double-doubles since Eli Chuha did so in the 2018-19 campaign and his eight-straight game of 20 or more points are the nation's second-longest active streak.
• Rice did his thing, too, finishing with 14 points on a 6-of-10 performance from the field. Henry added 10 points on a 3-of-5 night from the field and in addition to his highlight-reel posterization, Tillman totaled 10 points on a 3-of-4 effort from the field.
• Coming into Saturday night's showdown armed with the nation's second-best three-point field goal percentage defense, the Lopes found it absolutely useless against NM State's unrelenting three-point barrage. The Aggies shot 52-percent (13-of-25) from long range in their first regular-season sweep of the Lopes since 2019-20.
• NM State made it back-to-back wins over Grand Canyon for the first time since the 2019-20 campaign while head coach Chris Jans secured his first win over Lopes' head coach Bryce Drew in Phoenix.
• Blacksher Jr., and Woods did all they could to try and prevent the Lopes from suffering their second-straight loss to NM State. GCU's high-scoring tandem combined to produce 42 of the team's 66 points (63.6-percent) in their team's first WAC home loss of 2021-22.

COMING UP NEXT
• Next up on the Aggies' three-game road trip is a journey to the Pacific Northwest for a Monday night battle at Seattle U. At 8:00 p.m. MT, the Aggies and Redhawks are set to battle for sole possession of first place in the Western Athletic Conference standings.