Start with an 10-2 deficit, add a 32.1 field goal percentage, throw in a 2-9 showing from the three-point line, and end up a with a win.
Wait, what?
That's what the UNM women's basketball team's recipe included in the first half against the Brigham Young Cougars at The Pit on Thursday night.
Down 29-26 at halftime, a different team came out in the second half, outscoring the Cougars 38-22 and taking the game 64-51. It was UNM's 12th win of the season and second win in the Mountain West Conference.
Eleven minutes into the game, the Lobos had scored a grand total of eight points, found themselves bombarded on the boards 16-8, and down by 11 points.
"We just had too much adrenaline going," head coach Don Flanagan said. "We questioned our confidence too much. The first 10 minutes, we were having trouble scoring with anything we ran."
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Dionne Marsh was the initial spark that saved the Lobos from the doldrums.
The freshman forward came off the bench and scored UNM's next eight points on route to an 11-3 run by the Lobos that pulled them within two.
While BYU managed to hold onto the lead the rest of the half, the Lobos clawed their way to within three when senior Mandi Moore pirouetted around two defenders and heaved up a shot that bounced around the rim before going in at the halftime buzzer.
The story of two different UNM teams showing up for each half has been a plaguing tale all season, Flanagan said.
"We play a good half and a bad half all the time," he said. "Usually the bad half is our first half. I wasn't quite as quiet with them this time, because usually I'm quiet and pointing things out, but I was pretty pumped up for this game."
Even some of the Lobos were a bit taken back by Flanagan's intensity level.
"He said - not a cuss word - but he said a pretty feisty word," senior forward Lindsey Arndt said. "He got pretty feisty, but he had every right to be. We didn't look good that first half."
A 17-5 run that started with 15 minutes remaining in the game ameliorated the first half damage done by the Cougars, putting the Lobos up 51-39.
While UNM didn't fair much better from the field in the second half - they were 12-31 for a 38.7 field goal percentage - it was BYU that should have won the sixth man of the game award for the Lobos.
UNM did hit 8-9 free throws and 6-15 from the three-point line, but the Cougars went downright frigid. They were 6-26 from the field and 1-5 from behind the arc, leaving them with a 30.5 field goal percentage in the game.
Crawling back from the first-half shortfall, this type of game did wonders for the Lobos going into their toughest matchup of the conference against Utah on Saturday at The Pit, sophomore Katie Montgomery said.
"I think this kind of opened our eyes and showed us that people are going to come play us hard every game on our home floor," she said.
Arndt and Marsh both ended up with 12 points apiece, with Arndt snagging 10 rebounds.
Moore chipped in 11 points to go along with 8 rebounds, while Montgomery hit three 3-point shots to finish with nine points.
