*Washington 82-68 New Mexico *
SAN JOSE, Calif. — In an Iditarod-style basketball game, the Husky outran the Lobo.
The languishing Lobos watched their Sweet 16 hopes dissipate, as No. 11 Washington raced out of the second round at the HP Pavilion with an 82-64 victory. The lack of depth finally caught up with UNM, as seven of its players logged double-digit minutes. Washington, on the other hand, dipped into its bench, filtering in nine fresh guys.
“They were just too much,” said UNM forward Roman Martinez.
Way too much.
Head coach Steve Alford said it best.
“We ran into a combination of San Diego State and BYU wrapped together,” the Lobo coach astutely reasoned. “They got the size and athleticism of San Diego State and they play the style of BYU. That’s kind of scary.”
In fact, with Washington possessing the lead and the momentum for 30 of the 40 minutes, it was utterly terrifying.
It didn’t’ help that the Lobos were neophytes to double-digit halftime leads, having just one memorable 16-point rally to its name — that one coming against Creighton on Dec. 19, nearly three months ago. It didn’t help that UNM started the first half 3-of-5 from the 3-point line, only to miss its next nine shots from beyond the arc.
As the shots continued to ricochet off the rim — UNM missed 12 of 15 shots during one first-half stretch — the flustered Lobos frittered away, all but checking out at half time.
The resignation was present in their languid dribble. They looked emotionally and physically spent to start the second half, gasping for air, their legs rubbery. Darington Hobson hunched over , hands on his knees, mouthpiece protruding from his mouth.
All the Lobos huffed, waltzing back on defense. They gave it all they had. All they had wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. They lost by the largest margin of the season (18).
“You could start to see their heads go down a little bit, starting to see them get tired. Beat up,” Quincy Pondexter noted. “It came from great team help defense.”
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And the Huskies’ hastiness, pushing the ball relentlessly upcourt, after, not only a Lobo miss, but a made basket.
Asked whether the plan was to run the Lobos until they dropped, Isaiah Thomas responded with a level of sarcasm.
“You could say that,” he said.
Dairese Gary was too proud to admit it, but Washington beat New Mexico at its own game.
“I wouldn’t say they beat us at our own game. They had more easy shots than us,” Gary said. “They killed us. Layups after layups.”
Punch after punch — until the mighty Lobos spilled to the canvas as Washington’s rapturous, riotous crowd roared in approval.
Adding to the pain, at the 11:54 mark in the second half, Martinez took an arm to the side of the head, splitting his left eyebrow, blood profusely dripping down his side as he brought his jersey toward the wound to nurse it.
“Seeing his uniform in one of those timeouts — that’s just the way Ro plays,” Alford said.
Martinez deliriously walked toward the wrong bench, before being escorted out of the arena and into the locker room to receive medical attention. He received a handful of stitches, before re-emerging from the tunnel and checking back into the game with about seven minutes left.
But in his absence, the Lobos had done nothing to whittle away the lead.
“Tried to get back as fast as I could,” Martinez said. “Felt like a long time. I was trying to ask them, ‘What’s the score — if we were coming back?’ I just wanted to get back on the floor. It’s my last game. Just wanted to try to make a difference at the end.”
He would soon depart for the bench, receiving a hug from everyone down the Lobo line.
Unfortunately, the clock wound down on Martinez’s brilliant senior season as he sat two seats to the right of the end of the last folding chair on the bench, an NCAA towel draped over his left arm, wiping the sweat from his brow — the game decidedly over.
There they all were: Gary, Hobson, Martinez — the three Lobos that made this 30-win season possible, watching helplessly, in an almost catatonic state: arms folded, emotionless and all on the bench as the final second expired.
“We couldn’t respond in any way, offensively or defensively,” Martinez said.
Nothing worked, Alford said, no matter what he jotted down on the clipboard in timeouts. They solved everything the Lobos threw at them.
“Sometimes you just have to take your hat off and shake the opponents’ hand and say, ‘Job well done,’” Alford said. “That’s tonight.”
A night that won’t soon be forgotten.
