A stagnant offense cost the UNM women's basketball team a share of the Mountain West Conference regular season championship, with the Lobos losing 58-54 to Colorado State University Saturday in Fort Collins, Colo.
The Lobos (21-7, 10-4 in the conference) committed 19 turnovers and shot 37 percent for the game, handing the regular season conference crown and the number one seed in this week's Mountain West Conference tournament to the 20th-ranked Rams (23-5, 12-2).
Although UNM lost, head coach Don Flanagan said the team can be proud of what it accomplished during the regular season.
"You're always disappointed when you lose," Flanagan said. "You just have to look at it from a standpoint that we had a successful (regular) season, our players played hard and they played up to their potential."
UNM, picked to finish fifth in the preseason, earned second place and the number two seed in the tournament, which starts Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nev. The Lobos will face seventh-seeded San Diego State University at noon in the first round.
UNM will have to take care of the ball in the tournament better than they did Saturday. The team squandered a 10-point first half lead and threw the ball away numerous times.
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"I was satisfied with our effort, it was good enough to win," Flanagan said. "We just got cold on offense there for a while, but we played defense well the entire game."
But the Lobo defense was not able to overcome a seven-minute scoreless streak from late in the first half to early in the second half that allowed CSU to go on a 16-3 run.
UNM built its biggest lead of the game at 21-11 with 5:13 left when the arctic shooting began.
The Lobos missed their last five shots of the half and the Rams took advantage, going on an 11-3 run to cut the deficit to 24-22 at halftime.
Colorado State began where it left off at the end of the first half, scoring the first five points of the second half, all by Katie Borton, to sneak out to its first lead of the game at 27-24.
Junior forward Chelsea Grear finally ended the drought by converting a layup two minutes into the half.
The Rams gradually started to pull away and pushed the lead to 10 points at 48-38 with 7:07 remaining in the game. UNM would not fold, however, cutting the deficit to three, 53-50, after a 3-pointer by sophomore forward Melissa Forest.
The Lobos trailed by only two points at 56-54 with a minute-and-a-half left on a baseline jumper by freshman forward Lindsey Arndt.
Rams' point guard Jasai Ferrucho responded, slicing through the lane for a layup to push the lead to four. The Lobos could not get a clutch bucket of their own, missing a long-range jumper and committing two turnovers in the final minute.
The Rams shot 54 percent from the field in the second half to finish at 42 percent for the game.
"You're not going to stop a good offensive team," Flanagan said. "We kept them to 58 points and they average 72 on the season, so we did a good job. But, we have to score more points. It was more our offense than anything else; the defense did its part."
The main culprit of UNM's poor offensive performance was the Lobos' leading scorer junior center Jordan Adams, who averages 14.7 points a game. She scored a season-low three points on one-of-three shooting in 17 minutes of play.
Flanagan said Adams played so few minutes because she was getting pushed around inside and turned the ball over a couple times early in the game.
But he added that the entire team struggled to get anything going in the post.
"They were very physical with us; they did not allow our players to post up," he said. "We also did not work hard enough to get the ball inside."
Arndt was the only Lobo in doubles figures with 12 points, but 10 of those were in the games first 12 minutes.
UNM started the game well, going up 4-0 as CSU missed its first eight shots. But trouble started brewing for the Lobos when freshman point guard Mandi Moore picked up two quick fouls and had to sit down for much of the first half.
"What hurt us was Mandi getting in foul trouble," he said. "When she was in there, she was running the offense, taking care of business."
The Lobos did withstand Moore's absence early, leading 16-9 thanks to Arndt scoring 10 of the team's first 16 points. But Moore's ball-handling ability was sorely missed the rest of the half as the team committed 11 turnovers
Lisa Narkiewicz led CSU in scoring with 12 points and Angie Gorton chipped in with 11.
Flanagan said he is not discouraged by the loss heading into the tournament because the team has been playing well of late. UNM has gone 10-3 in its last 13 games.
"We might be playing our best basketball of the season, especially defensively," he said. "We just have to refocus against whoever we play in the tournament and give our best effort."
UNM' swept its conference tournament opponent, SDSU, in regular season play this season.
The Lobos held off a late rally to win 58-49 in San Diego on Jan. 23 and cameback from a halftime defecit to win 63-53 in The Pit Feb. 23.
Wednesday's game will be televised locally on KRQE, Channel 13 at noon. The game will also be broadcast on 610 AM, The Sports Animal.
