Clovis' Jennings pursuing NMSU job

Former Clovis Wildcats standout Bubba Jennings believes his familiarity his New Mexico and West Texas basketball as a player and a coach makes him a viable candidate for the opening at New Mexico State.

Spending the last four years as an assistant under Bobby Knight at Texas Tech doesn’t hurt his chances, either.

Jennings is one of two candidates known to have applied to replace veteran NMSU coach Lou Henson, who retired in January due to prolonged health problems. Former Georgetown coach Craig Esherick is the other, according to the Associated Press.

“I think they really have a nice program at New Mexico State,” said Jennings, who helped Clovis win the state title in 1979 and still holds the school record for points in a game (75) and season (33.3 ppg). “I just think some unfortunate things have happened to them and I’d like to be the one to help bring them back up.”

Jennings, 42, has no college head coaching experience, but said his time under Knight makes up for it. Knight won three national championships at Indiana and is third all-time in wins in Division I history.

“I don’t think it’s going to hurt me at all because I’ve been under the best coach in college history for four years and I’ve been learning every day,” said Jennings, who was the Southwest Conference Player of the Year as a Texas Tech senior in 1985 and was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks.

Jennings said he wasn’t actively looking to leave his current job as video operations manager with the Red Raiders, but views the Aggie job as a perfect situation because of the location and his familiarity with the program.

“For me, it’s an opportunity in terms of applying. It’s an opportunity to get involved as a head coaching position,” Jennings said. “I’d really like to get back to being a head coach at some point and I thought I’d take my chances and apply.”

Jennings said he watched NMSU basketball on television as a kid. He’s also played and coached in Las Cruces collegiately with Texas Tech.

New Mexico State is slated to move next season from the Sun Belt Conference to the higher-profile Western Athletic Conference. The Aggies are 5-21 with only one win in Sun Belt play this season.

Before joining the Red Raiders in 2001, Jennings was a head coach at Lubbock Coronado for two years and at Artesia for nine years, where he won two state titles.

Esherick went 103-74 before being fired in March after a 13-15 season.

NMSU athletics director McKinley Boston told the Associated Press he has encouraged Aggie interim coach Tony Stubblefield to apply and that Boston intends on hiring a coach by early April.

Clovis Christian boys coach Jimmy Joe Robinson, who coached Jennings at Clovis, said his former star would make a great coach because of his dedication and basketball mind.

“It’s what he thought about all his life,” Robinson said.