During practice this week, head coach Don Flanagan stressed one thing to the UNM women's basketball team: offense.
After putting up just 38 points in a home loss to BYU last week, Flanagan said he wanted to make it clear that kind of performance can't happen again.
The Lobos ran offensive drills in practice this week, Flanagan said.
"For the first two days, that's all we did," he said. "I don't think I've done that in all the years I've been here. I don't want to take away from the defensive end of the court, but we needed to feel comfortable with our offense."
The Lobos can make up for the sloppy performance when they host UNLV at The Pit on Saturday.
The Runnin' Rebels are coming in with their own troubles, having lost four games in a row.
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"Everybody has their struggles," Flanagan said. "They have a nice team. They're solid, but they're struggling, too. Hopefully, it's not a game in the 30s."
UNLV is 6-13 overall and 2-4 in Mountain West Conference play.
While they haven't played well as a team, the Rebels' Sequoia Holmes has been on a tear this season. She is leading the conference with 17.9 points per game while averaging 7.2 rebounds per contest.
Flanagan said UNLV has a handful of players who can damage UNM.
Still, the plan is to try to make Saturday as difficult as possible for Holmes, he said.
"We're going to chase (Holmes) all over the place," Flanagan said. "I'm not saying we're going to be able to stop her, because she is very talented. But she's going to get our full attention."
After starting 7-0 at The Pit, UNM has lost its last three home games against MWC opponents.
Sophomore guard Amy Beggin said the team needs to get back to what it was doing at the beginning of the year.
"I think we're just trying to put too much pressure on ourselves," she said. "I think we need to just relax. We know we can shoot better than how we have, so we need to just focus on settling down and finding open people."
UNM is 10-9 overall and 2-4 in MWC play, a year after winning the conference tournament.
The Lobos struggled at the beginning of conference play last year, when Flanagan wondered if his team would even receive a berth in the National Invitational Tournament.
However, that team got hot at the right moment, earning an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
Though this year's team doesn't have the experience of last year's, Flanagan said it is still possible to turn things around this season.
"You're always expecting the team to start playing their best," he said. "Hopefully, we can do that again. We've struggled lately. But in recent memory, we've played better at the end of the season."
