The men’s basketball team has cracked the national rankings for the first time this season.
After coming off back-to-back wins over nationally ranked opponents, the Lobos are now ranked No. 18 in the Associated Press Poll.
Head coach Steve Alford said the Lobos are worthy of the national ranking.
“Our guys have done an awful lot of work to get to this point,” he said. “When I look around the country it’s hard for me to find 25 teams doing any more than what we are doing right now and that is a tribute to our players.”
ESPN also picked the Lobos as the team of the week.
UNM is 22-4 and 8-2 in the MWC and is on a seven-game win streak in conference play.
The Lobos won each one of those seven games by double digits. They beat then-ranked No. 17 San Diego State by 10 points on Wednesday and No. 11 University of Nevada Las Vegas by 20 points on Saturday.
With seconds remaining in the UNLV game, the student section began chanting “overrated” referring to the team’s ranking, but Alford said UNLV deserved its high ranking and the win demonstrated how revered the Lobos are in eyes of the national media.
“I don’t think UNLV is overrated, I think we are underrated,” he said. “Maybe it will take games like this to get that kind of attention.”
In this week’s polls, SDSU is ranked No. 24 and UNLV is No. 21.
With the 8-2 record in MWC, the Lobos sit two games ahead of both UNLV and SDSU who are 6-4 in conference.
This is the first time since the 2009-10 season that the Lobos have entered the top 25.
Senior forward Drew Gordon was also honored for his individual play this week being named the MWC player of the week and the national player of the week by ESPN.
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This is his third MWC player of the week for this season and the fifth in his Lobo career.
Gordon is coming off a career game at UNM when he scored 27 points and had 20 rebounds in the win against UNLV last Saturday.
Last Wednesday Gordon had 17 points and 17 rebounds against SDSU.
Gordon said nothing will change now that the team is ranked because the Lobos still have the goal of a MWC championship and an NCAA tournament appearance.
“It won’t change our attitude, and we know how we are going to act,” Gordon said. “Our team is hungry, and we want a ring. We are striving to keep getting better.”
Sophomore guard Tony Snell said the Lobos will continue their winning streak with their next game away to Colorado State and are good enough to take the MWC title.
“To win a championship, I know that we are good enough to do it and talented enough as well,” Snell said. “We have to go in there and do the best we can for the rest of the season.”
