The crown jewel of the Northern New Mexico College men's basketball schedule is finally in place.

On Tuesday, Eagles head coach Ryan Cordova announced that his club will travel to Las Cruces on Valentine's Day for a regular-season game at New Mexico State University.

It's one of 29 games on the Eagles' 2011-12 schedule and one of four the NAIA program will play against NCAA Division I opponents.

The others are Weber State, Montana State and Northern Arizona. A fifth, Grand Canyon, will join Division I in the 2012-13 season.

The game against Northern Arizona will be at NNMC's Eagle Memorial Sports Complex in Española. It's one of just seven home games on the schedule.

"If you want games against some of these bigger schools, you have to go on the road," Cordova said. "We'll be traveling a lot this year."

Cordova said the contract with NMSU has the Aggies paying for NNMC's travel expenses. They'll also kick in an additional $3,000 from that night's ticket sales.

"It's a guarantee game, but more than that it gives us some exposure in the southern part of the state," Cordova said. "There are a number of real talented high school players coming into their senior year next year, so getting us getting out there is a good thing for our program."

Following a Dec. 19 visit from Valley City (N.D.) State, NNMC's only home game the rest of the season is a Feb. 11 contest against conference rival Johnson & Wales University.

The Eagles will also face a number of NCAA Division II teams. They'll play six teams from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, including one at New Mexico Highlands at a date to be determined.

They also travel to Portales on Dec. 30 to face Eastern New Mexico.

The toughest stretch of the schedule comes in November when the Eagles play 15 times in a 23-day span. It includes stops in 10 cities and four states.

The highlight is a rugged trip that starts Nov. 9 in Hobbs against The University of the Southwest, then has five games in as many days starting Nov. 11 at Weber State (Ogden, Utah), Montana State-Billings (Billings, Mont.), Montana State (Bozeman, Mont.), Western State (Gunnison, Colo.) and Adams State (Alamosa, Colo.).

Cordova said he spoke with The University of New Mexico about potentially playing an exhibition game in The Pit against the Lobos in November, but those discussions never got beyond the exploratory phase.

"It's beneficial for an NAIA program to play as many bigger schools as possible," Cordova said. "We use a point system to get the top four teams into the conference (tournament) semifinals. We'd get eight points for beating a Division I team on the road and five for losing to one. We'd only get four points for a win against an NAIA team at home. It pays to be on the road against tough teams."

— This article by Will Webber, The New Mexican (published July 26, 2011)
Contact Will Webber at wwebber@sfnewmexican.com or 986-3060.