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Once again, the No. 15 New Mexico men’s basketball team looks to cement itself as the top team in the Mountain West Conference title race.
At 6-1 in conference play and 19-3 overall, the Lobos continue to lead the MWC race with one game left to the halfway point. Two teams trail by one game, and one of those teams will vie for a share of that lead today.
UNM hosts second-place Air Force tonight at The Pit in Albuquerque. The Falcons (14-6 overall) are one of two teams with a 5-2 conference record; Colorado State is the other. The Rams (18-4 overall) play at Nevada today.
It’s a situation reminiscent of one in which UNM found itself two weeks ago. The Lobos held a one-game lead when hosting Colorado State on Jan. 23. The five-point win gave UNM a two-game cushion on the rest of the league, but San Diego State’s dominating win three days later loosened the Lobos’ grip.
Since then, UNM defeated Wyoming and Nevada to keep its advantage in the standings.
“We’ve really put ourselves in a good position,” UNM head coach Steve Alford said. “We’re pretty healthy. Hopefully we can have two good days of practice here and play well on Wednesday.”
The conference race is one of the more thrilling in the country.
Six of the nine MWC teams have at least 15 total wins, and all but one have a winning record. As the midway point of conference play nears, at least six teams are in the running for the league race.
Kenpom.com, a basketball statistical website run by Ken Pomeroy, ranks the Mountain West Conference as the fourth-best men’s league in the nation, behind the Big Ten, the Big East and the ACC.
“I knew our league was going to be really good, but I didn’t know it was going to be top-three-in-the-country good,” Alford said. “Teams have performed very well. We’re one of those teams.”
With UNM leading the pack, everyone will certainly give the Lobos their best shot. Alford said he expects nothing less from Air Force. The Falcons use a Princeton offense, a style of play described as slower paced yet constantly moving with many ball screens, a lot of passing and a team-oriented mentality.
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Air Force comes to The Pit after winning five games in a row, including Saturday’s 70-67 victory over then-No. 22 SDSU. It was the Falcons’ third-ever win over a ranked opponent.
At 38.2 percent per game, the Falcons boast the best 3-point shooting mark since league play began, making almost seven and a half triples through the first seven MWC contests. They have also limited their MWC foes’ 3-pointers to 27.5 percent a contest.
Todd Fletcher tops the Air Force roster in that category. The senior guard made 14 3-pointers between seven league games, shooting a 48.3 percent clip. For the season, he’s shot 50 percent from long range.
Senior guard Michael Lyons has scored a team-high 18.1 points per game this season, the second-best average in the league, and 4.6 rebounds per game. Fletcher adds another 10.1, followed by senior forward Mike Fitzgerald with 9.5 and senior center Taylor Broekhuis with 9.3.
“We are probably a little bit smaller, a little bit thinner, not as long and as athletic as most teams in the conference, and that hurts us at times,” said Air Force coach Dave Pilipovich. “We’ve got to adjust to it. We have to play a little bit different than some teams in the league.”
UNM junior guards Kendall Williams and Tony Snell, along with sophomore center Alex Kirk, are still among the top 20 scorers in the MWC. Williams is 11th with 13.8 points per game, Snell is 16th with 11.8 a game and Kirk is 18th with 11 per game.
Demetrius Walker, UNM’s junior role player who has struggled mightily this season, ended a slump with a breakout game against Nevada on Saturday. He scored 12 points in 18 minutes off the bench after scoring just 14 points in his previous nine games.
Alford said that because Walker practiced well during the last several weeks, he wanted to get him some time on Jan. 30 at Wyoming but he didn’t play because of substitution patterns. If Walker continues this upward trend, Alford said Walker’s minutes would likely increase.
Men’s basketball vs. Air Force
Wednesday 2/6
The Pit
7 p.m.
