Making shots to win basketball games will take a backseat for the UNM men’s basketball team this time around.
Lobo head coach Steve Alford wants his team to emphasize defense against Air Force (8-8 overall, 0-3 Mountain West Conference) and its Princeton offense Wednesday at Clune Arena in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“We talk about defensive patience when you play a team like Air Force,” Alford said. “You don’t usually hear that very much. But you have to have patience defensively, because they are going to run that Princeton offense, and they run it over, and over, and over and over.”
UNM is riding a two-game winning streak and is 16-3 overall and 2-2 in the MWC.
During the Lobos’ two-game winning streak, sophomore A.J.
Hardeman has shined.
Hardeman was named MWC Player of the Week, and he is the third Lobo who has garnered that honor this season, making UNM the only team in the conference with three players to earn the award.
Hardeman said being named MWC Player of the Week caught him off guard.
“It’s good to be getting noticed in the conference, but, right now, we are just worried about getting ready for Air Force,” Hardeman said. “But I have been working hard and getting better every day in practice as well as the team. I just want to get ready for Air Force, and that is all behind us now.”
In the last two UNM games against Utah and at Wyoming, Hardeman scored a combined 29 points, nabbed 12 rebounds and had four blocked shots and three steals.
Hardeman said his latest success can be attributed to his change of attitude on the court.
“I am getting more touches, but I am trying to be more aggressive as well,” Hardeman said. “I am trying to get a lot more rebounds, because that is where we were struggling. We were out-rebounding a lot of teams now but only lost to one on the boards and that was Wyoming.”
The Falcons may not stop running the famous offensive scheme — which was introduced to college basketball in the 1930s — but it seems it didn’t persuade preseason voters.
Air Force was picked to finish ninth last place in the MWC and started off the 2010 conference season with three straight losses, totaling 19 straight overall in the MWC.
Regardless, Alford said, UNM is in for a dogfight.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Air Force, BYU or UNLV,” he said. “It’s not about the front of the jersey we are playing. It’s another game that is on our schedule. We got to play them and we will do that, whether it’s BYU, who is leading our league right now, or Air Force, who is 0-3 in the league
right now.”
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*Men’s basketball at Air Force
7 p.m.
Clune Arena
Colorado Springs, Colo.*
