The UNM men’s basketball team was handed its third loss — its second in a row, and its first in 20 games inside the friendly confines of The Pit.
UNLV won 74-62 over the Lobos in their Mountain West Conference home opener on Saturday, dropping UNM to 0-2 in the MWC.
“Give a lot of credit to Las Vegas,” said forward Roman Martinez, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds. “They are tough defensively. They are a tough overall team, and it showed in the second half. They out-toughed us, and we didn’t respond.”
Last week, during a press conference, head coach Steve Alford said he would be happy with the odds in any game in which the Lobos were tied with five minutes to go.
With 10 minutes left in the game, the Lobos were up by one, taking their second lead of the night. But by the time the five-minute mark rolled around, the Rebels had taken the lead and widened it to 13 — their largest margin of the game.
The lead was a result of the devastating shooting of the Rebels’ Kendall Wallace, who hit five 3s over that five-minute period and went 7-of-10 from behind the arc, coming off the bench to score 21 points in 23 minutes.
On the other hand, the Lobos continued their shooting slump, amassing their lowest point total of the season. The Lobos have put up less than 70 in four of their last five games, something that happened only once in their first 12 games.
UNM has lost three of its last six games, and when they have won (with the exception of a 15-point win over Texas Tech), it has been by margins of two and five against Dayton and Creighton, respectively.
Alford said that the chatter about the Lobos’ shooting slump has made its way out of the newspapers and into the heads of his players, leading to a 36-percent field goal percentage on Saturday.
The Lobos also shot less than 40 percent in their losses to Oral Roberts and San Diego State — both on the road.
“We just haven’t been shooting the ball well,” Alford said. “Everybody is talking about it, and I guess our guys are listening to it.”
Saturday was only the second time this season the Lobos failed to shoot 40 percent inside The Pit. The only other time was in UNM’s five-point victory over Creighton on Dec. 19, in which the Lobos shot 29.9 percent from the field.
The left-of-center shooting could have something to do with fatigue. Four of the five Lobo starters played 34-plus minutes in Saturday’s outing. And UNM’s bench contributed only four points.
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With the exception of big man Will Brown, who splits time with A.J. Hardeman, the four bench players played a total of 20 minutes.
“We have a very young bench,” Alford said. “And we got to keep working and developing that bench, because we have to get production from them. All of a sudden, we are not getting that. It is not their fault. It is an incredibly young bench that we just got to keep working on and getting better with.”
The most pressing example of Alford’s words in action: After an 8-3 run pulled the Lobos ahead — all on the back of Darington Hobson, who scored six straight points and had an assist to Brown that gave the Lobos a slim, 46-45 lead — Hobson went to the bench for a breather.
And the bench could not pick up the slack while Hobson was out.
Over the next three minutes, the Rebels went on a 13-2 run — Wallace was credited for most of those points. But that doesn’t explain the nearly five minutes that the Lobos went without a field goal.
“That is why it is fragile right now, because we have a young team,” Alford said. “So those young guys have suddenly got hit in the mouth. They haven’t had that all year long. So, we are going to see how we handle getting punched in the mouth. That will be interesting to see. Hopefully, we can get up in a hurry.”
Still, the Lobos will have a shot on Wednesday to attain their first conference win when Utah travels to face UNM.
The Utes are 9-7 overall, coming off a 20-point home win against conference opponent TCU.
Utah, who won the MWC Tournament last year and got an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, isn’t as young as the Lobos, but their team has been transformed from last year. The Utes lost five seniors from a year ago, three of them starters.
*Men’s basketball vs. Utah
Wednesday
8 p.m.
The Pit
*
