It was a mission accomplished for the UNM women's basketball team, which earned a dominating 85-44 victory against the Denmark Select Saturday at The Pit.
Besides winning, head coach Don Flanagan said he wanted to achieve two things in the team's last exhibition game - play a lot of people and execute the offense.
The Lobos were effective in both categories, posting double-digit minutes for 11 of the 12 players who stepped on the court and scoring 46 inside points.
"It's not the greatest of games because it's not particularly competitive, but you do get an opportunity to play a lot of people and I do want to play a lot of people," Flanagan said. "We had an opportunity to run our stuff and see if it works."
Junior center Jordan Adams led the team in points, rebounds and blocks for the second-straight game. She scored 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting, corralled 10 rebounds and swatted away four shots. However, Adams did struggle at the free-throw line, making four out of 10 attempts. During the Lobos' two exhibition games, Adams has amassed some outstanding numbers, scoring 46 points, grabbing 21 rebounds and blocking nine shots. The taller Lobos had their way offensively and defensively with Denmark, scoring at will in the paint. UNM out rebounded Denmark 62-38, including 25 on the offensive end. The gamelan for the Lobos was to get the ball inside, with UNM generating many easy scoring opportunities. The Lobos shot 38 percent, but many of the misses were from close range.
The game was never a competitive contest as UNM pitched a shutout for the first five and a half minutes, jumping out to a 12-0 lead. The Lobos went inside early and often to Adams, and she scored the first six points of the game. The opportunistic Lobo defense wreaked havoc on the Select defense, pouncing on bad passes and converting the turnovers into points. The closest Denmark got to the Lobos was eight points with 5:29 left in the first half. The Lobos put the finishing touches on the half by scoring 12 of the next 14 points to lead 40-22 at halftime.
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The Lobos created 22 turnovers and turned them into 28 points. They also limited the Select to only seven assists. Anika Madsen and Therese Deemand combined to score 32 of Denmark's 44 points, with Deemand scoring 18 and Madsen contributing 14 points. The team shot only 27 percent for the game.
The second half was more of the same with the Lobos bursting out on a 9-0 run to extend the lead to 49-22. The Lobos used an aggressive inside game to outscore Denmark 45-22 in the second half, with their biggest lead being the final margin, 41 points.
"It wasn't a great game probably for the fans, but I think it was a good game for us to get minutes, to get people that normally didn't get great amount of minutes got great time and everybody had fun playing," Flanagan said.
With everybody playing, UNM saw major contributions from its bench. Junior forward Tiffany Scaglione was everywhere on the court in the second half, hustling her way to 12 points and junior forward Daja Adams nearly chipped in with a double-double by scoring nine points and pulling down 10 rebounds.
"Its refreshing to know that if someone works their butt off for a certain amount of time the next person comes in and there is no drop off," Scaglione said. "That is what we work for in practice."
The Lobos get the regular season started when they play their first game of the season Nov. 9 at home versus Pacific University in the Preseason Women's National Invitational Tournament.
