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Official Sports Report: December 19, 2009
Texas A&M Regrets Facing New Mexico
Turgeon Gave Lobos "Early Christmas Present"
by Glen Rosales, Managing Editor
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- This is simply too juicy to avoid or ignore, even if it comes a touch late.
Apparently, Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon is none too pleased with the results of last Saturday's game against New Mexico.
He's obviously not happy that his Aggies got horse whipped by a better team. He's not happy that a paltry 7,757 fans from the greater Houston metropolitan area came out to support his nationally ranked team at the Toyota Center. And he's not happy with himself for going against his better judgment by scheduling the Lobos in the first place.
So Turgeon took out his lack of holiday cheer on New Mexico.
"I'm mad at myself for playing that game," he said Wednesday during his weekly meeting with the media. "It was a huge favor, an early Christmas present for their program and it just wasn't very smart on my part."
It's hard to picture Turgeon as a jolly old man in a white beard and red suit handing out holiday hoops favors.
"I said no to New Mexico for six weeks, but I'm just too nice of a guy," Turgeon said. "I should have never given in."
And, as one can imagine, his remarks did not go over too well hereabouts and it overshadowed the fact that a pretty good Creighton team is coming to visit UNM tonight.
"For whatever reason, Mark has chosen to demean us and what we are about and our program and what the Mountain West Conference is about," Alford noted an grily. "And that's very odd and strange to me."
"It was a huge favor, an early Christmas present for their program and it just wasn't very smart on my part." Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon
Despite New Mexico's pedigree and undefeated nature, that apparently wasn't enough to draw the legions of Aggies boosters from the Houston area, the country's fourth-largest city with a population base of 2.2 million.
"You need a BCS school for our fans to be excited," Turgeon pointed out.
Now how sad is that? New Mexico drew more than 13,000 fans to The Pit for a mid-week game against the likes of Northern Arizona.
Now, I'll grant you that Houston is no Albuquerque. It's a football town. And Texas A&M is no UNM. For the Aggies, hoops are something you twirl around your body while waiting for spring football. For the Lobos, well we all know what basketball means here.
So in reality, it was UNM stooping to play A&M simply because Alford wanted to give some of the Texas locals a chance to play in front their home folks.
"It's a game that we wanted because we have a lot of Texans to go back to that area," he said.
The whole conversation arose about whether Turgeon would take A&M back to the Toyota Center for another game.
Really, though, it doesn't matter what brought it up, or how he paid the Lobos some compliments out of one side of his mouth while insulting them out the other.
"Even if we win the game, we don't get credit for that game," Turgeon said. "So as good as they are, I mean they're a heck of a basketball team. They're probably the second best team we've played."
Still, Alford was none too pleased.
"If there's any kind of Christmas present out there, like I told the staff earlier, it was that we handed them a Christmas present that they were ahead 2-0," the coach said. "So, we're just not going to be disrespected. We're not going to sit back and let these so-called BCS schools turn their nose down to us. Because we'll schedule whoever wants to play us."
And it's simply not right for a coach to denigrate another's program like that.
"If we go away from here and get beat, we take our hats off, shake your hands and say, 'Good job,'" Alford said. "So the last thing I'm going to do is let other coaches and other programs disrespect what we're trying to do here."
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Glen Rosales is the Managing Editor of New Mexico OSR. Feel free to contact him with questions, comments or story ideas at newmexicoeditor@officialsportsreport.com.
Texas A&M Regrets Facing New Mexico
Turgeon Gave Lobos "Early Christmas Present"
by Glen Rosales, Managing Editor
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- This is simply too juicy to avoid or ignore, even if it comes a touch late.
Apparently, Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon is none too pleased with the results of last Saturday's game against New Mexico.
He's obviously not happy that his Aggies got horse whipped by a better team. He's not happy that a paltry 7,757 fans from the greater Houston metropolitan area came out to support his nationally ranked team at the Toyota Center. And he's not happy with himself for going against his better judgment by scheduling the Lobos in the first place.
So Turgeon took out his lack of holiday cheer on New Mexico.
"I'm mad at myself for playing that game," he said Wednesday during his weekly meeting with the media. "It was a huge favor, an early Christmas present for their program and it just wasn't very smart on my part."
It's hard to picture Turgeon as a jolly old man in a white beard and red suit handing out holiday hoops favors.
"I said no to New Mexico for six weeks, but I'm just too nice of a guy," Turgeon said. "I should have never given in."
And, as one can imagine, his remarks did not go over too well hereabouts and it overshadowed the fact that a pretty good Creighton team is coming to visit UNM tonight.
"For whatever reason, Mark has chosen to demean us and what we are about and our program and what the Mountain West Conference is about," Alford noted an grily. "And that's very odd and strange to me."
"It was a huge favor, an early Christmas present for their program and it just wasn't very smart on my part." Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon
Despite New Mexico's pedigree and undefeated nature, that apparently wasn't enough to draw the legions of Aggies boosters from the Houston area, the country's fourth-largest city with a population base of 2.2 million.
"You need a BCS school for our fans to be excited," Turgeon pointed out.
Now how sad is that? New Mexico drew more than 13,000 fans to The Pit for a mid-week game against the likes of Northern Arizona.
Now, I'll grant you that Houston is no Albuquerque. It's a football town. And Texas A&M is no UNM. For the Aggies, hoops are something you twirl around your body while waiting for spring football. For the Lobos, well we all know what basketball means here.
So in reality, it was UNM stooping to play A&M simply because Alford wanted to give some of the Texas locals a chance to play in front their home folks.
"It's a game that we wanted because we have a lot of Texans to go back to that area," he said.
The whole conversation arose about whether Turgeon would take A&M back to the Toyota Center for another game.
Really, though, it doesn't matter what brought it up, or how he paid the Lobos some compliments out of one side of his mouth while insulting them out the other.
"Even if we win the game, we don't get credit for that game," Turgeon said. "So as good as they are, I mean they're a heck of a basketball team. They're probably the second best team we've played."
Still, Alford was none too pleased.
"If there's any kind of Christmas present out there, like I told the staff earlier, it was that we handed them a Christmas present that they were ahead 2-0," the coach said. "So, we're just not going to be disrespected. We're not going to sit back and let these so-called BCS schools turn their nose down to us. Because we'll schedule whoever wants to play us."
And it's simply not right for a coach to denigrate another's program like that.
"If we go away from here and get beat, we take our hats off, shake your hands and say, 'Good job,'" Alford said. "So the last thing I'm going to do is let other coaches and other programs disrespect what we're trying to do here."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glen Rosales is the Managing Editor of New Mexico OSR. Feel free to contact him with questions, comments or story ideas at newmexicoeditor@officialsportsreport.com.
