New Mexico head coach Yvonne Sanchez wouldn’t classify the two game series against NMSU as a traditional rivalry.
Sanchez said there is a lot of mutual respect between the 225 miles that separate Las Cruces and Albuquerque. With that said, she deemed the final in-state clash of the year as an important indicator for her squad.
“The Aggies are going to pose a test; they really are,” Sanchez said. “They’re athletic. They love that dribble-drive. They love to get to the middle of the floor, which we can’t allow.”
After losing the first meeting on Nov 17, UNM will look to even out the series during the team’s final nonconference game of the 2015-16 campaign. One thing Sanchez said will be crucial to the outcome of the game will be the play of New Mexico’s defense.
In the first meeting UNM allowed 78 points from NMSU’s offense, tied for the most allowed by the Lobos this season, during the 78-59 loss. Sanchez said Friday that her squad was still finding its defensive voice at the beginning of the season.
“It was our second game of the year and we weren’t good at all,” Sanchez said. “That being said, I really like the progression and what we’ve done from that game moving forward.”
New Mexico’s defense has been sound as of late, including a 19-point road victory against a Minnesota team in UNM’s last outing. Sanchez said she was particularly impressed with the victory away from WisePies Arena which featured 4,163 fans.
However, Sanchez is not going to dwell on or celebrate games this season as she continues to plunge forward and gets ready for the conference transition.
“It’s over. That game is done,” Sanchez said. “We got a chance to enjoy it that night and yesterday, because we had off, but it’s New Mexico State now and we haven’t beaten them in the last two games.”
While Sanchez is looking ahead at Sunday’s contest, it’s hard to look past New Mexico’s recent three game win-streak in which the defense has been the founding reason in each of those contests.
The team will have its hands full with a potent New Mexico State offense that is averaging over 74 points a game. Sanchez said junior forward Brianna Freeman and senior guard Sasha Weber are NMSU’s “one-two punch”, but added the rest of the team poses a lot of threats as well.
For the Lobos, it will be up to the defense to step its game up on Sunday in order to split the two in-state contests because Sanchez said offense is not something to be counted on.
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“You can’t create defense through offense but you can create offense through defense,” Sanchez said. “That’s what we’ve been focusing on for a month now: it’s your defense that’s going to propel you to everything that you want to do.”
Although the Lobos are relying on their one-game-at-a-time mentality, Sanchez said it would be nice to head into a ten-day absence from the basketball court.
“We have to get better against New Mexico State if we want to beat that team,” Sanchez said. “And if we can, it can transfer into some confidence going into conference.”
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at assistantsports@dailylobo.com or on twitter @Liam_CE.
