An electric atmosphere engulfed The Pit Saturday night when the UNM men's basketball team played against Stanford University, but the Lobos offense showed no spark during the 81-66 loss.
A frenzied sellout crowd saw the Lobos (0-1) struggle to get anything going offensively for much of the game, while the 13th-ranked Cardinal had their way inside and on the perimeter.
"I was pleased with our team's effort," head coach Fran Fraschilla said. "Obviously, we had some breakdowns. There were a couple of spots in the game where I thought we got a little haywire."
UNM built an early eight-point lead, but saw it whither away with every inept offensive possession.
The Lobos shot 36 percent for the game, including a dismal 28.2 percent in the first half.
"We just didn't make the extra, extra pass," junior guard Marlon Parmer said. "We made the extra pass and the guys from Stanford are so good, they were able to recover and we needed to make that one extra pass."
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The struggle carried over to the free throw line, where the Lobos made only five-of-15 attempts, including an airball by senior guard Eric Chatfield.
The game was eerily similar to last January's meeting between the two teams at Stanford when the Lobos built an early lead and saw it decimated by a Cardinal onslaught, losing 75-44.
This time around, Stanford (1-0) scored the first eight points of the game before UNM exploded on a 20-4 run to take its largest lead of the game at 20-12 with 10 minutes left.
The Lobos showed balance on offense with six different players scoring during the run.
The defense also contributed. The Lobos contested every shot and created numerous turnovers as Stanford missed eight straight shots at one point.
However, the Cardinal showed why they are nationally ranked, answering the run with one of their own.
Stanford turned up the defensive intensity and burst out on a decisive 26-6 run during the last 10 minutes to build an insurmountable 38-26 lead at halftime.
"We were clicking on all cylinders and then some subs came in and we just let up," Parmer said. "We shouldn't have let up; we had them."
The Lobos misfired during the run, missing 12-of -15 shots, and the rim was unkind to several of the Lobos' shots.
"We were hitting some shots and then.." Fraschilla said. "I can distinctly remember five or six balls going in and out."
The much ballyhooed guard play of the Lobos struggled, with the exception of Chatfield. He led the team in scoring with 17 points, making six-of-10 shots.
Unfortunately for the Lobos, the rest of the perimeter players did not play as well. Parmer, Ruben Douglas, Senque Carey and senior Tim Lightfoot combined to shoot 16-for-48 for 33.3 percent from the field.
"Defensively, they sagged on us and we just didn't make plays," Parmer said. "We just weren't ourselves tonight. It was hard getting any momentum at all. We tried, we just couldn't get it going."
UNM tried to make a comeback in the second half, but Stanford was too efficient on offense.
The Cardinal made 16-of-28 field goals for 57.1 percent and scored four 3-pointers in five attempts.
"I thought a big thing was we needed to get some stops in the second half in order to get back into the game; we didn't get them," Fraschilla said. "You got to credit them. They made some awfully tough shots."
Stanford would build a 20-point lead early in the second half on a 3-pointer by point guard Tony Giovacchini, who scored all 13 of his points after halftime. Chatfield tried to make things interesting by scoring all eight points in a Lobo 8-0 run that cut the lead to 11 at 62-51 with over nine minutes left.
But Stanford made several nice passes for easy lay-ups and made seven-of-eight free throws to seal the victory.
All five starters for Stanford scored in double figures. Leading the way was first team preseason All-American Casey Jacobsen, who scored 17 points on five-of-14 shooting and dished out eight assists.
Senior center Curtis Borchardt chipped in with a double-double, scoring 17 points and corralling 11 rebounds.
Stanford finished the game shooting 45.4 percent, including 9-of-16 from behind the arc.
"I thought they played a terrific game," Fraschilla said. "They really showed a lot of poise and stepped up and made some big shots. You got to really hand it to them."
The Lobos have no time to sulk following the loss because they play again today against Texas Southern University at 7:20 p.m. in The Pit.
The game will be the second part of a doubleheader featuring Eastern New Mexico University versus Western New Mexico University playing at 5 p.m.
