San Diego State guard Jene Morris has nothing to be sorry for.
On the other hand, the Lobo women’s basketball team, namely Amy Beggin, apologized to fans for letting Morris score 25 points on Jan. 6, leading SDSU to a 61-39 win inside The Pit.
The Lobos travel to San Diego Saturday to start the second leg of conference play, hoping this go-around ends differently.
“Everybody knows what happened, and that is something we just don’t want to let happen again,” Beggin said of the game against the Aztecs. “We are not going to let it happen again. We just go(t) to come out and play with energy and consistency for 40 minutes. And if something goes wrong, we got to keep battling, keep fighting.”
Morris wasn’t the only thing standing in the Lobos’ way on Jan. 6.
The Lobos offense also sputtered. They scored their lowest amount all season. They shot 15-of-56 (26.8 percent) from the field and 2-of-13 (15.4 percent) from beyond the arc — both are nearly season lows.
The Lobos two highest scorers, Beggin and Lauren Taylor, scored a below-average nine and eight points, respectively.
Since the loss, the Lobos went on a 5-2 run in conference play, pulling themselves within half a game of a four-way tie for first in conference.
San Diego State, BYU and TCU sit at a three-way tie, 5-2 in conference play. The conference lineup would be a little clearer if the Lobos hadn’t muddied the water last week with a pair of wins.
UNM stole a 60-57 win over BYU on the road, knocking them out of first place. The Lobos then vanquished TCU, sole conference leader at the time, pulling the Lobos into second place.
“It was against two of the top teams in the conference,” Beggin said. “That was really big. It got us back in the race, but this game doesn’t get any easier. The big picture is that it was just two games that we won.”
Head coach Don Flanagan said the momentum will help against the Aztecs.
But to ultimately stop SDSU, the Lobos will have to be unpredictable on defense. Last week, the Lobos held TCU to their lowest point output of the season.
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“They are not a great 3-point shooting team,” Flanagan said of SDSU. “They don’t shoot a lot of 3s, so your approach might be — lets ignore the 3 and jam it down low and don’t let them have a lot of inside stuff. But, whatever you do, you have to mix it up. We can’t be predictable on defense.”
On the offensive end, Eileen Weissmann, who averages 5.9 points per game, proved she can be a key scorer, pouring in a career-high 17 points against TCU.
Taylor, who has been out with a knee injury, will play on Saturday. She is the second-leading scorer behind Beggin, contributing 11.1 points per game.
Beggin said they will need Taylor against SDSU.
“It’s really nice to just have that shooter back, another weapon offensively and just to have her knowledge and her smarts, I think, is really going to help us a lot,” Beggin said.
