Aggie basketball has taken a step up in the past several years, and it should only get better during the 2007-08 season.

The men’s basketball team will have a big change in personnel with its new head coach Marvin Menzies, but he says former coach Reggie Theus’ “up-tempo” style of game will stay the same.

“I am very excited about passing the reins over to coach Menzies,” said McKinley Boston, director of NMSU Athletics. “I believe that from a continuity standpoint this will be a great fit and a very smooth transition.”

Menzies spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach under Rick Pitino at Louisville, where he replaced Theus when Theus came to NMSU as head coach in 2004. Menzies has coached at the college level for 14 years.

“Every coach dreams of being a head coach, but when the dream becomes a reality and it’s a perfect fit as well, based on a whole host of issues, it really makes it special,” Menzies said.

Both the men’s and women’s teams made it to the conference tournament finals in 2006-07. The men’s team claimed victory and went on to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999.

Promising new signings and returning key players will add experience and depth to both programs, which women’s basketball coach Darin Spence said he is excited about.

“We’ve been runners-up in the WAC Championship for two years, and now we are antsy to take it up to the next step,” Spence said. “We will have seniors this year that will be able to play a lot of minutes, giving the younger and newer players more time to adjust.”

Sherell Neal, who in 2006-07 made the All-WAC Second Team, the All-WAC Defensive Team and the WAC All-Tournament Team, is one of the top returning players. New signings have brought Brittany Palmer, who made First Team All-State in California, Brittany Henderson, who is the daughter of former NBA-player Jerome Henderson, and Madison Spence, coach Spence’s dauther, who was the New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year.

The men’s basketball team will have top returning players such as Justin Hawkins, who has won numerous awards including All-WAC First Team, MVP of the WAC Tournament and the All-District Team of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and Fred Peete, who made the All-WAC Newcomer Team and the All-WAC Defensive Team.

The men’s team also signed Herb Pope, who made the Fourth Team Parade Magazine All American, and Gordo Castillo, a two-time New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year.