It was lucky No. 7 for the Lobos and senior Daniel Faris at The Pit on Saturday.
UNM secured its first win, 81-62, in seven tries over the David Rose-led BYU Cougars.
And Faris scored the first seven points of the game against conference rival BYU to give UNM a quick 7-3 lead in a game the Lobos would ultimately win.
"One of the things you have to do against BYU is think physical play," head coach Steve Alford said. "You have to match their physicality, and I thought we did that early in the game, and Daniel had a lot to do with that."
Faris has played outstanding the last five games, as the Lobo big man flipped a switch into beast mode.
During the five-game span, Faris has averaged 16.4 points per game and was flawless from the free-throw line against the Cougars, hitting all seven of his attempts.
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The 19 points for Faris tied a season-high, and Saturday was his fifth straight game in double figures.
Faris also made 50 percent of his shots, going 6-of-12 in the field against BYU. He led all scorers with his 19 points, grabbed three rebounds in the victory and put up 13 points in the first half against BYU.
Even with his dominating force in the New Year, Faris credits his teammates.
"When you have two shooters like Chad (Toppert) and Roman (Martinez) on our team, it just makes everything so easy," Faris said. "I just have to go out there and try to get rebounds - that's it."
Coming into battle in The Pit on Saturday, the Cougars had won six straight over the Lobos.
"That is just what we needed against BYU. They are a really tough team," Faris said. "I am just really happy we could pull that off as a team. It was a good team win."
Rose said he was impressed by Faris' fast start.
"I think that the things we saw on film were executed really well," Rose said. "They share the ball really well, and they did exactly what we were worried about. They spread us out, got the ball into the low post and got the low post scoring early."
