Since New Mexico won’t make the trip to Wyoming this year for a Mountain West basketball game, Lobo coach Craig Neal said he received an offer via text from Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt.
Come up for a vacation and experience Laramie, Neal joked.
The 11-team conference schedule means teams drop one half of a home-and-away series with two different foes, and the Lobos will not face the defending conference tournament champion in Wyoming. They’ll face off only once during the upcoming 2015-16 season: Jan. 16 at WisePies Arena.
“I'm going to miss the overtime games, but we've had great games up there and we've had great games here,” Neal said in Tuesday news conference. “We're not going to go there and so that's a little bit different because since we've been here we've always went there.”
New Mexico released its complete schedule for 2015-16 on Tuesday. It features games against seven NCAA tournament teams. In addition to the three MW representatives – Wyoming, San Diego State and Boise State, the Lobos added NCAA participants Texas Southern, Northern Iowa and Purdue. UNM’s in-state rival New Mexico State also played in last season’s Big Dance.
The Lobos see two of those teams right off the bat: hosting Texas Southern in the Nov. 13 regular-season opener and playing at New Mexico State in Las Cruces two days later. After games at USC and home against Nicholls State and Oral Roberts, the Lobos travel to Purdue on Dec. 5. The Northern Iowa game then takes place Dec. 12.
After home games against New Mexico State and Rice, UNM closes out its nonconference schedule at the 2015 Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu Dec. 22-25. Auburn, BYU, Harvard, Hawaii, Northern Iowa, Oklahoma and Washington State will also attend the tournament.
The nonconference schedule is probably tougher than the Lobos are prepared for, Neal said, but he wants his players to be ready for a battle in the Mountain West. The goal was to keep UNM in the top 150 in the Ratings Percentage Index, or RPI.
“(Texas Southern coach) Mike Davis does a good job, had some major upsets last year so it's a little bit tougher game than we're used to playing,” Neal said. “Then we play at USC and we've got some good game, at Purdue and getting Northern Iowa in our building is big.”
Conference play opens Dec. 30 against Nevada at WisePies Arena. Colorado State is the other conference teams sees one time this year, at Fort Collins on Feb. 24.
The Lobos alternate home and road games through the first nine MW games, then they switch between back-to-back road outings and consecutive home contests. UNM also closes out the regular season at Nevada on March 2, three days after its home finale against San Diego State.
“I don't know how they do that,” Neal said. “I've always been one of those guys who thought it was cool to have travel partners because I always think it's easier for the kids academically and also rest-wise, but 11 teams we can't do that. I guess they try to do it from everybody.”
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For preseason play the Lobos host CSU Pueblo and Rogers State. The Lobos do not play an in-state Division II team this coming preseason, but Neal said he scheduled CSU Pueblo because freshman Dane Kuiper’s brother, Braydon, plays for the ThunderWolves.
J.R. Oppenheim is the managing editor for the Daily Lobo. Contact him at managingeditor@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JROppenheim.
