The three seniors on the men’s basketball team could not have thought of a better final game at The Pit.
Senior forwards Drew Gordon and A.J. Hardeman and senior guard Phillip McDonald played their final home game in The Pit on Saturday. The Lobos beat Boise State 76-61 to give UNM a share of the MWC regular-season championship.
After the game, all three were honored by the team as a majority of the sold-out Pit audience stayed around to applaud the players.
All three players have been stars on the court and are slated to graduate this spring.
Hardeman and McDonald embody why the Lobos have been so successful in the past four seasons. In the past four years, the Lobos won three of the four MWC regular-season championships.
Hardeman and McDonald now have 98 career wins, tied for most in UNM history with Dairese Gary, who graduated last year.
The pair has a chance to break that record when they face Air Force this Thursday in the MWC tournament.
McDonald scored more than 1,100 points in his career at UNM to put him at No. 24 on the list of all-time scorers at the University.
In his first three seasons, McDonald started nearly every game for UNM and was an integral scorer for the team.
Before the season started, McDonald suffered an elbow injury and a sprained ankle, and freshman guard Hugh Greenwood came into the team and took his starting spot.
Because of the early setbacks, he has only started in two games this year, but has played in 28. Head coach Steve Alford pointed out after the game that McDonald was a true team player and has never once complained about his lack of play time this year.
He has come off the bench this year to add an offensive spark, scoring 173 points and going 42-97 from 3-point range.
Unlike McDonald, Hardeman found a starting spot hard to come by when he was a freshman, but has started in all but 10 games in the past three years.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
This year was Hardeman’s worst for scoring in his career. He only averaged 4.8 points per game, but it’s no surprise that this year’s Lobos defense has been one of the best.
This year the Lobos moved to outside shooting, taking 599 3-pointers so far, and Hardeman had to sacrifice his play on the offensive end to help the team. But what he gives up on offense, he brings on the defensive end, the sign of a true team player.
It is no doubt that Gordon is the Lobos’ best player. After playing two tumultuous years at UCLA, he transferred to UNM, and because of NCAA transfer rules he had to sit out until December of last year’s season.
In just the past year and a half, Gordon has been a revelation for UNM, averaging a double-double. He has been named the MWC player of the year on five occasions and two weeks ago was named a candidate for national player of the year by ESPN.
On Saturday, he scored a career-high 30 points, breaking his former high of 27 with a 3-pointer with less than a minute left, the only one he has attempted this season.
It’s no surprise that these three players are the reason behind UNM’s success this year, but Gordon has stepped it up when the team has been looking for a true leader.
Alford said after the game that two years ago UNM got to 30 wins. The team is currently six wins away from 30, and if it makes that tally, it means it will be playing in the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament.
These seniors are entering what is perhaps the most important two weeks of their basketball careers, and to win six more games is a lot to ask. But don’t count them out — if the Lobos can go that far, these seniors can write themselves into the history books of UNM basketball.
