The UNM men's basketball team ended its exhibition season on a sour note Thursday night dropping an 87-81 decision to the EA Sports Southwest All-Stars in front of a crowd of 15,350 in The Pit.
And although the Lobos lost by only six, the All-Stars controlled the game from the onset.
With more than 15 minutes to play in the first half, Tim Lightfoot hit a 3-pointer - his first attempt of the game - to give the Lobos a slim 11-10 lead. But the All-Stars led by as much as 16 points in the first half as UNM could not get a cohesive game plan working.
"This is exactly what our team needed," UNM head coach Fran Fraschilla said. "This is perfect because we're not as good as everybody expected, and now we can go back to being an underdog."
Fraschilla started Jamaal Williams and Alvin Broussard at the forward positions, Moustapha Diagne at center and had Marlon Parmer and Eric Chatfield at guard.
He said that two usual starters were on the bench for wanting to "be basketball players first and students second." He did not name the two players.
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"We didn't obviously start the five guys we start during the season," Fraschilla said. "We benched a couple of guys tonight just because I felt as though they weren't doing things the right way academically."
After the Lobos took their last lead at 11-10, they would not score again until the 12:10 mark, when Chatfield hit a three off of a nice Diagne screen to make the score 22-14.
Guard Ruben Douglas hit his first points of the night with more than 10 minutes to play in the first half to bring the Lobos to within 27-20.
The All-Stars opened up a 38-22 lead after forward Nick Bradford hit two free throws with 7:08 to play, but the Lobos would close the gap.
Chatfield hit two free throws to make the score 52-43 and Pat Kelly followed with two of his own, as the All-Stars took a 52-45 lead into half time.
In the second half, the Lobos trimmed the All-Stars' margin to 54-51 after Williams' tip-in of a Douglas miss, but it was as close as they would come the rest of the way.
The All-Stars consistently capitalized on the Lobos' flimsy inside defense to score countless back door buckets, which effectively kept them out of contention.
"We had a lot of people chip in offensively, we just didn't get the job done defensively," Fraschilla said. "That's where I think we broke down."
And every time the Lobos seemed to be making a run, the All-Stars seemed to be able to close the door.
The Lobos closed the lead to 72-68 on a Lightfoot 3-pointer with less than eight minutes to play, but four straight All Star points opened up the lead once again.
Then with 5:31 to play, Chad Bell hit two free throws to make the score 76-72, but the All-Stars responded with leads of 82-72 and 86-75 before some mop up work at the end by the Lobos created the final margin.
Douglas led UNM scorers with 21 points on six-of-14 shooting from the field, while Chatfield pitched in 14 points. Diagne had six points in 16 minutes of play but led UNM in rebounds with seven.
Every Lobo that played, scored, except for Senque Carey who had no points in 12 minutes.
Bell had nine points and three rebounds in 23 minutes, but perhaps more impressively, he made seven of his nine free throw attempts.
The Lobos shot only 36.5 percent from the floor, and Fraschilla said he expected that trend to change.
"We missed a lot of easy shots that I don't think we'll miss during the season," Fraschilla said.
And he had praise for the Lobo newcomers.
"We learned a lot," Fraschilla said. "We had guys like Chad and Jamaal and Pat and Moustapha out there quite a bit. The young guys weren't the problem; the young guys are doing everything we've asked them to do."
UNM will face the 15th-ranked Stanford University in The Pit a week from Saturday in the first game of the regular season. The Cardinal will be led by pre-season All-American guard Casey Jacobsen.
