by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
Heading into Saturday's game at The Pit, UNM head coach Don Flanagan had a magic number in mind for his women's basketball team to defeat Wyoming.
The magic number was 55 - as in the maximum number of points Wyoming should score if the Lobos were to come out with a win. Flanagan turned out to be right as the Lobos scored 62, but just to be safe the UNM defense held the Cowgirls to a season-low 39 points.
Flanagan said he was impressed, considering the Cowgirls came into the game averaging more than 61 points per game and their previous season low was 47 at Denver.
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"They're tough to defend," Flanagan said. "They run their offense as well as anyone in the conference. That was some pretty darn good defense - sometimes they didn't even get a shot."
The reason Wyoming had a hard time getting open looks at the basket was because of the discipline of the Lobo players. Each player stuck to her assignment and made it hard to pass the ball, much less shoot it. On numerous occasions the Wyoming players were forced to throw up a bad shot with the shot clock expiring because of the swarming UNM defense.
Wyoming was pressured into seven turnovers after halftime and shot a measly 5-of-25 from the field. For the game, Wyoming only made 15-of-50 field goal attempts, shooting for an average of 30 percent.
UNM also completely took away the long ball from the Cowgirls, who finished 0-for-14 from beyond the three-point line.
The Lobos used that stifling defense to run away from Wyoming in the second half. While they held the Cowgirls to 21 points in the first half, UNM struggled offensively and went into the locker room holding on to a slim 23-21 lead.
Since they were unable to create a rhythm on the offensive side of the ball, the Lobos made sure to clamp down even harder on defense to open the second half. For nearly six and a half minutes, UNM shut out Wyoming, not allowing the Cowgirls to score their first points of the second half until Megan McGuffey made two free throws with 13:34 remaining. The Cowgirls did not have a field goal until McGuffey scored at 11:31. By that point, UNM had a 41-25 lead and the game in control.
"We really wanted to win this game," senior Jana Francis said. "It was a big game at The Pit, in our home court. It was a huge deal for us to come out and play good defense and stop them from scoring."
Junior guard Katie Montgomery said the team's defense relies on trust among teammates. No one on the team is expected to do everything on defense, and the scheme works best when everyone plays within their role.
"When we all play team defense, and when we're all on the same page and doing our job, I think our defense is real good," she said. "That's what we did, and everyone helped each other out, and we weren't letting them get their shots."
