It’s a brand new cast for a brand new year.
After a 30-win season, back-to-back Mountain West Conference regular-season championships and a trip to the NCAA tournament, the UNM men’s basketball team is prepared to defend its title.
Head coach Steve Alford joked that his new crew doesn’t even understand college basketball formalities.
“In the two exhibition games, we had guys three different times sub in at media timeouts without going to the scorer’s table,” he said. “They played high school basketball without a shot clock. The game is different.”
The Lobos are picked to finish third in the Mountain West preseason poll, behind San Diego State and BYU.
Dairese Gary, UNM’s floor leader, is also the team’s lone senior. In Gary’s 92 consecutive starts, UNM is 71-26, and Gary has the opportunity to be the winningest Lobo in history. He is on track to become the third Lobo to reach 1,000 career points and 500 assists.
“He’s our go-to guy,” Alford said. “He’s not only asked to run our show offensively, but he gets the toughest opponent defensively. He’s good on both ends.”
Gary said he is focused to help the Lobos get back to the NCAA tournament.
“It’s tough being the only senior,” he said. “Everyone looks up to you. You’ve been through everything, so you have to be that leader to take up all the challenges, but my teammates have been helping me out.”
UNM will also need quickness to overcome its inexperience.
“We have five underclassmen in the backcourt,” Alford said. “That is a lot of pressure put on their shoulders, and that is a tough one to make up for because we basically lost the entire backcourt.”
Out of the five freshmen on the roster, guards Tony Snell and Kendall Williams are expected to play significant time off the bench, Alford said.
Snell, the 6-foot 7-inch guard from Riverside, Calif., said that’s fine with him.
“That’s what they expected from me when I came here,” he said.
The Lobos have four eligible sophomores: forwards Chad Adams and Emmanuel Negedu as well as guards Curtis Dennis and Jamal Fenton. Dennis started in the team’s final exhibition game against Manchester. Fenton came off the bench to score a game-high 23 points in that game.
“My team just gave me the ball and I used my speed against and it worked out and I had a really good game,” Fenton said. “We are looking for a three-peat, get better as a team and make it farther in the NCAA.”
The guard-heavy Lobos will make sure to incorporate their bigs. UCLA transfer Drew Gordon is among those expected to make a significant impact. He was selected as the MWC Newcomer of the Year.
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Because of NCAA transfer rules, Gordon is eligible to play against Citadel on Dec. 19. In the meantime, the Lobos will rely on a trio of post players: junior A.J. Hardeman, Alex Kirk and Tennessee transfer Emmanuel Negedu.
Negedu received a medical waiver to play without having to sit out because of NCAA transfer rules. He suffered a cardiac arrest and had an internal cardiac defibrillator implanted in his chest last year before transferring to UNM.
“We got to be patient and hope that as each week goes by, each game goes by, he just gets better and better,” Alford said. “He’s much better now than he was a month ago.”
Alford said ball movement will be key to the Lobos’ success.
“We got to go inside-out,” he said. “We can’t be a team that relies on pick-and-pop 3s like we have the last couple years. We have got to make that defense flatten out the baseline to open up other jump-shooting opportunities.”
