New Mexico State Hangs Big Numbers on UC Irvine : Basketball: The Aggies start scoring early en route to a 102-77 victory over the Anteaters.

UC Irvine’s four-game winning streak came to an end at about 7:45 Saturday night. It wasn’t official for another hour and a half, but it was as good as over when New Mexico State’s Rodney Walker wrenched the ball from the grasp of Raimonds Miglinieks and took it the distance for a layup that gave the Aggies a 35-14 lead with more than eight minutes left in the first half.

Irvine retired the number of two-time All-American Kevin Magee at halftime, but even if Magee again had donned No. 44 and played with the Anteaters in the second half, he would have had to score his average of 26 points a game in just 20 minutes to change the outcome.

For the record, the final score was 102-77 and the 3,058 in the Bren Center had precious little to cheer about. The Aggies had it all their way, improving their record to 16-5, 7-3 in the Big West.

Irvine (8-10, 4-7) was never closer than 11 after the first eight minutes of the game. The Aggies swarmed around Miglinieks, who finished with 15 points, 10 assists and nine turnovers. And they double-teamed freshman forward Kevin Simmons, who scored only three points.

“They came in here saying, ‘That’s nice whatever happened prior to now, but we’re going to do what we do best,’ ” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “They said, ‘OK, Kevin Simmons is leading the conference in scoring, so he’s not going to touch the ball as much as he usually does. And Raimonds Miglinieks is leading the conference in assists, so he’s not going to be able to pick as many guys out as he normally does.’

“If you allow them to get you on your heels, (their match-up zone) is impossible to beat. They just keep pushing you farther and farther away from the goal.”

If the Aggies’ defense was impressive, their offense was inspiring. New Mexico State shot 56% from the floor and made 10 of 23 three-pointers. And when an Aggie did miss, an Aggie was often their to snare the rebound and slam it back in. New Mexico State had 17 offensive rebounds, most of which ended up as two more points on the scoreboard.

“I was worried about this game,” Aggie Coach Neil McCarthy. “I anticipated a very close game. But we played well. We were quick and active.”

And the Anteaters went to bed Saturday night with blurred visions of leaping Aggies dancing in their heads. New Mexico State went over, under and around Irvine’s 2-3 zone, causing Baker to describe his team’s defense as “awful.”

Thomas Wyatt led New Mexico State with 26 points, hitting five of nine three-pointers. Eight of his teammates had six or more points and four were in double figures.

“We scored 77 points, which would have been enough to win all of those last four games we won,” Miglinieks said. “Our offense was not so bad. But we had too many turnovers, most of those my fault, and we didn’t rebound very well.”

Freshman Brian Keefe, who made seven of 10 from the floor, led Irvine with 19 points. Reserve Khalid Channell scored 14.

With Irvine’s main offensive threats stymied, Keefe and forward Michael Tate picked up the slack. Both made five of their six first-half shots, but the Anteaters still trailed at the intermission, 53-42.

“At halftime, we felt like they had done everything about as well as they possibly could and we hadn’t done anything,” Baker said. “If Brian and Michael hadn’t played like they did in the first half, we could have been down by 30. But we were only back by 11.

“We thought if we could just get it under 10 . . . “

But a couple of minutes into the second half, the Aggies were up and running again and leading by 15.