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Head Lobo basketball coach Craig Neal, right, looks on in disbelief as Colorado State University's Gian Clavell sinks away after a jump shot on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017 at WisePies Arena. The Lobos lost to the Rams, 68-56.

Head Lobo basketball coach Craig Neal, right, looks on in disbelief as Colorado State University's Gian Clavell sinks away after a jump shot on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017 at WisePies Arena. The Lobos lost to the Rams, 68-56.

Men's Basketball: CSU deals Lobos their fourth home loss of the season

New Mexico drops to fifth in conference

Struggles on the offensive side of things turned into a 68-56 loss for the UNM men’s basketball team on Tuesday night against Colorado State, a defeat that dropped New Mexico to fifth in the conference standings with two games left.

Three Lobos saw double-digit figures when it came to scoring, but even Elijah Brown’s 20 points weren’t enough to slow the Rams offense, which also had three players score at least 10 points, led by Gian Clavell’s 24 points.

"We ran into a team that is playing extremely well. You've got to give them credit,” said UNM head coach Craig Neal after the game. “They played harder. They played with something. They played with a lot better pace, a lot better urgency. Our guys didn’t look like they had it tonight.”

The Lobos are now 16-12 overall and 9-7 in the Mountain West conference. Colorado State (19-9, 11-4 MW), meanwhile, vaulted to the top after dealing New Mexico just its fourth loss at WisePies Arena this season.

At the beginning of the season, the Lobo coaching staff emphasized improvement on defense. Neal said his team has been successful in that area of the game.

But unplanned setbacks, such as scoring threat Tim Williams sitting out with a stress reaction, have the team struggling to find consistency on offense.

New Mexico has been looking for a third and fourth consistent scorer since the season started, but the Lobos were at least able to rely on Brown and Williams, whose scoring averages are typically in the high teens.

Without Williams, a few other Lobos have stepped up, but there hasn’t been a prominent go-to scorer aside from Brown, who has struggled at times himself.

“I don’t think they were expecting to have this big of change offensively in the middle of the year,” Neal said. “I think it’s a little bit uncomfortable for them, but they are trying really hard and I think that they are going to work through it. But defensively I’m happy with the way they’ve improved.”

During the first half of Tuesday’s match, the Lobos shot 46.2 percent from the field, just a tad better than their opponents, but still faced a 36-29 deficit. New Mexico only took the lead twice during this period, and each of those times it was only by a one-point margin.

The Lobos struggled even more in the second period. The closest they got to the Rams was two points when the clock read 15:22. But the Rams regained control of the game and managed to lead by as many as 13 points, twice.

By the end of the night, the Rams finished with a 43.1 shooting percentage from the field, 27.3 percent from beyond the arc and 70.6 from the free throw line.

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The Lobos, in comparison, shot 42 percent from the field, including a 41 percent mark on 3-pointers.

New Mexico’s performance from the free throw line was an outlier, however, and a definite factor in the loss.

For the first time in his career as a Lobo, Brown did not get to the foul line at all. As a team, the Lobos shot at 58 percent, well below their 75.5 percent average.

Neal said his team wasn’t able to get over the “hump” on Tuesday, but that he expects the Lobos to show improvement in the remaining games of the regular season. He added that although March will be an important month with the conference tournament, he wants his team to remain focused on February.

The Lobos’ penultimate game of the season will be a road tilt on Saturday afternoon against Wyoming. While the team is still mathematically alive to win Mountain West, it would need help from the programs New Mexico is looking up at, including CSU, which would have to lose every one of its remaining games.

Isabel Gonzalez is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. She mainly covers men’s soccer and basketball. She can be reached at sports
@dailylobo.com or on Twitter 
@cisabelg.

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