The UNM women’s basketball team continues to knock on that Mountain West Conference door for that first league win.
The problem is no one is answering. Not even at The Pit.
With a 56-53 loss to Utah on Wednesday, the Lobos dropped their fourth straight conference game and have lost eight of their last nine games.
“It’s tough,” guard Lauren Taylor said. “I don’t want to start out conference 0-4. It’s a big hole to come out of, but there is always the (MWC) tournament. We just got to keep working from here and just find the little extra to get those last couple of points.”
Those last couple of points never came, even though the Lobos had chance after chance to defeat the Utes.
With 29 seconds left, UNM’s Jasmine Patterson cut the Utes lead to 54-53, but Utah pulled away in the final seconds of play and the sealed the door for any UNM comeback victory.
After a Taylor foul, the Utes Michelle Plouffe missed a free throw and the Lobos nabbed the rebound.
Taylor found Morgan Toben open in the corner for a go-ahead 3, but Toben missed the open shot. Utah rebounded and held on for the win.
Head coach Don Flanagan said the Lobos were just outmatched by Utah.
“I just thought that they outworked us,” Flanagan said. “I thought they were more physical than we were, stronger than we were, and they pushed us around on free throws and block outs. I didn’t think that we played hard enough.”
The Lobos locked down the Utes two leading scorers, Iwalani Rodrigues and Janita Badon. The two combined for just 15 points.
With time winding down in the first half and the game tied at 18, Badon was unguarded after a Utah rebound. Rarely left open, Badon, however, nailed a crucial 3-pointer with no time left in the first period. Utah walked up The Pit ramp up on UNM 21-18.
Taylor said she shouldn’t have allowed Badon to hit the buzzer-beater.
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“Oh, it kills me,” Taylor said of Badon’s 3-pointer. “We should have come out farther in the zone because we weren’t expecting her to shoot it. We were expecting them to go to one of their shooters. That was my fault. I was up there (on the 3-point line) with our zone.”
Plouffe led the Utes with a double-double. She finished the night with 13 points nabbed 12 boards.
“You can’t end up giving up rebounds if you have players running out on shooters and you overload one side and (the opposing team) rebounds,” Flanagan said. “Our interior players had not scored all night.”
Taylor led all scorers with 21 points, and Porche Torrance had a career-high five steals. Patterson added 11 points of her own. More than anything, the Lobos couldn’t hit a beach ball into the ocean. They shot only 30 percent from the field.
Flangan said shooting woes haunt UNM.
“Again, our main problem is that we’re not shooting well,” he said.
