On Friday, March 17, The Baylor Bears faced the New Mexico State Aggies in the first round of the NCAA March Madness Tournament. The Bears were determined to win against the Aggies after hearing rumors about them being “overrated” and “known to blow it”. Shooting guard, Al Freeman, came off the bench with 21 points and the third seeded Bears topped No. 14 New Mexico State 91-73.

Forward, Jonathan Motley also added 15 points and 10 rebounds for Baylor (26-7). Baylor was upset by Georgia State and Yale in the first round the previous two years. “No one wants to leave the tournament early,” Motley said. “Our ultimate goal was to come in and just win it, so we want to just take every game for what it is and make sure we come in and just play our hardest, play desperate, because after this, you lose, you go home. So we knew one team was going home today, and we made sure it wasn’t us.”

The Bears go on to play Southern California on Sunday, March 19. For New Mexico (28-6), Ian Baker and Braxton Huggins scored 19 points each. “We beat a lot of teams this year that we weren’t supposed to beat, we beat a lot of teams that were flat-out better than us,” New Mexico State coach Paul Weir said. “We were trying to do it against one more team tonight, and we were trying to do that with what I think we showed for 20 minutes, which is a team that just plays really hard, a team that plays together.”