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The UNM women’s basketball team received an unexpected challenge against Eastern New Mexico at The Pit on Saturday.
The Lobos went on to win their second and final exhibition 56-37, but only led 23-18 at halftime, and head coach Yvonne Sanchez said the first half was just a blur.
“Offensively, shooting off the move, those shots that we missed today we shoot every day in practice,” she said. “We do those every day and I think there are just some nerves in there.”
UNM had only two scorers in double digits. Senior guard Caroline Durbin and redshirt junior forward Deeva Vaughn each scored a team-high 11 points.
Durbin said the team didn’t run the offense well in the first half.
“I think they were playing smarter than us in the first half,” she said. “We had open shots, but we weren’t concentrating or focusing, and we were rushing them.”
The Zias came out strong by hitting a trey to start the game for their only lead of the contest. It took the Lobos nearly 3 minutes to put their own points on the board, breaking the drought when Durbin hit a layup with 17:07 in the first half.
UNM turned the ball over only five times in the first half but kept throwing errant and rushed shots for a 25.8 shooting percentage.
Sanchez said the team was out of rhythm in the first half but started to find its groove in the second half.
“They played hard. Eastern came out and played hard and did a nice job. I thought we were a little tentative and I played a lot of players,” she said. “It wasn’t a great flow in the first half. Second half we came in with more of a regular rotation.”
The Lobos went on a 12-4 run to start the second half, highlighted by a Durbin 3-pointer to push the UNM advantage to 34-22 with 14:07 remaining in the second half.
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UNM not only started to hit shots after halftime, but stepped up on the defensive end as well. The Lobos forced the Zias to shoot 1-13 from downtown in the second half and held them to a 23.3 shooting percentage in the half.
Sanchez said the team started to communicate better on defense in the second half, which let it shut down the Zias.
“We just switched everything up in the second half and we talked better,” she said. “We were switching in the first half, but we weren’t talking as much.”
Freshman point guard Bryce Owens dished out the ball throughout the game for 10 assists and might have had more if her teammates didn’t continuously miss shots. Owens’ aim was off all night with a 1-7 shooting performance, but she scored four points and grabbed seven rebounds with four steals.
Ownens became the first Lobo to record 10 or more assists since Mandi Moore had 11 against Wyoming on March 4, 2004.
“Bryce plays like a veteran,” Sanchez said. “She’s going to be pretty good.”
