The UNM men's basketball team overcame a week's worth of distractions and shut down Brigham Young University's top offensive player to secure a 73-58 win in The Pit Saturday.
Point guard Marlon Parmer rejoined the Lobos after a brief hiatus as result of what head coach Fran Fraschilla termed "a team issues." To the fans' delight, Parmer stepped onto the court with 16:18 remaining in the first half and accrued 27 minutes of playing time. Parmer finished with 13 points, six assists, four turnovers and two steals.
Meanwhile, it was the Cougars' star shooting guard Mark Bigelow who was nowhere to be found. Bigelow averages 17 points per game but finished with a mere two points, which came 27 minutes into the game.
Strong defense on Bigelow and guard Travis Hansen, who finished with eight points, was essential, Fraschilla said.
"We had a lot of pressure on the ball, we contested a lot of shots and I thought the difference in the game was the defense on their two wing players," Fraschilla said.
Guards Ruben Douglas and Tim Lightfoot also scored 13 points each, while forward Patrick Dennehy added 11. BYU was led by forward Jared Jensen, who scored 15; guard Daniel Bobik, who finished with 11; and forward Eric Nielsen, added 10 points.
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The first half was tightly contested, and the Cougars went into the halftime ahead 32-31, but it was the last time they would have the lead. UNM went on a 14-2 run in the first four minutes of the second half, which it later extended to a decisive 20-7 run that put the game out of reach.
Douglas led the Lobos out of the locker room, scoring nine points in the first five minutes before heading to the bench. After the game, Douglas did not contest his playing team, but he hinted that he would have liked to stay in the game longer after his shooting spurt.
Fraschilla distributed playing time evenly among the rest of his guards, with starters Senque Carey and Eric Chatfied each playing 28 minutes. By using the smaller lineup, Fraschilla forced the Cougars to adjust and helped weakened their strong frontcourt, which had played an integral role in the Cougars' upset of nationally-ranked Stanford University earlier this season.
BYU sputtered but closed the gap to 55-49 with six minutes remaining but the effort proved to be too little, too late.
UNM improves to 12-4 overall and 2-0 in Mountain West Conference play, while BYU dropped to 12-4 and 2-1. The Lobos had lost their past four matchups against the Cougars, including last season's Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship.
While the game against the Cougars could not be characterized as easy, Fraschilla and his players said it was a welcome respite following the scrappy defense by the Air Force Academy that hampered the Lobos' transition game and penetration, which accounts for a least one-third of their scoring.
He added that the win was important and something he expected from the team despite the controversy surrounding the Lobos during the past week. The questions centered on Parmer's suspension, whether center Moustapha Diagne's foot injury would prevent him from playing basketball again and Fraschilla's cryptic reference to Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while complaining to a referee during the team's win over the Air Force Academy.
"I think it's safe to say that adversity brings a team together, and we certainly have been through a lot this week, but I had no doubt we would come in here and play well today," he said.
Parmer echoed Fraschilla comments, saying he was just glad to be back on the team.
"I definitely feel like I am a better person after all of this and learned the real importance of getting my education the way my mother always used to tell me because you never know when all of this is going to be over," Parmer said after the game.
The Lobos now set their sights on another strong conference foe, the University of Utah, which comes to The Pit Monday night for a 7 p.m. matchup that will air taped-delayed at 10:30 p.m. on KRQE-Channel 13. It also can be heard on the radio on 770 KKOB-AM.
