For the first time this season it wasn’t the offense that brought New Mexico down. The defense did. UNM dropped its seventh straight game after losing to a streaking Boise State team 75-65 in Boise, Idaho, where the Lobos’ inability to get stops was the team’s Achilles’ heel.
New Mexico drifted away from its interior game, but reawakened its identity in a 63-50 victory over Boise State on Wednesday night at WisePies Arena. Going into the game, the Lobos were ranked second-worst in 3-point shooting percentage. However, the Lobos continued to shoot the deep ball despite the team’s low success rate in shots behind the arc. UNM went 3-10 from 3-point range in the first half. “Sometimes there’s a reason you’re open,” head coach Yvonne Sanchez said. “We were beating them a lot inside a lot in the first half ... I told them we don’t need to take a lot or settle for jump shots.”
New Mexico senior guard Hugh Greenwood has been the cornerstone for UNM’s success as of late and feels that the young, struggling Lobos might need to put in a little more work than they have been. The Lobos start one freshman, Sam Logwood, and play five other players with no Division I experience, and Greenwood thinks the team could put some more time in the gym before and after practices.
Maybe it was the pressure of the inaugural Pink Pack game. Maybe it was because the Lobos were staring at a potential six-game losing streak for the first time since the 1970-1971 season. Whatever the reason, New Mexico continued its vapid play in a 76-68 loss to the UNLV Rebels on Saturday. UNM dropped its sixth game in a row and has lost seven of its last eight overall. In the midst of one of the worst seasons in recent memory, head coach Craig Neal said the team has not shown eagerness to get back to the team’s winning ways. “It just seems like when it goes downhill, there’s no pushback,” Neal said. “There’s no fight to get back.”
Sound interior play from UNLV and UNM’s inability to keep the Rebels off the line shattered New Mexico’s eight-game win streak with a 79-73 loss to UNLV on Saturday. Head coach Yvonne Sanchez said the Rebels took advantage of sophomore Kianna Keller’s and junior Khadijah Shumpert’s trouble with steering clear of personal fouls. Despite the fouls from the Lobo forwards, UNM was not content with walking away from the 1,311 fans at Cox Pavilion without a fight. “Their bigs kind of took it to us when we got in foul trouble,” Sanchez said in a statement. “UNLV is playing really good basketball. We had to fight back on the road and it just didn’t work out for us. We had an opportunity.”
The losses keep piling up for the New Mexico men’s basketball team, and head coach Craig Neal continues to point to the team’s youth as the cause. Neal said that he is trying to stay as positive as he can with his young and inexperienced team, using the losses as motivation to get better. “I’ve been sending the message out to the guys to be real positive,” Neal said. “We need to get back to doing the little things, trying to stay within the culture that we’ve built. I know we’ve been struggling and just trying to do the little things to get back on the winning way.”
New Mexico will gear up for a showdown as the team heads into Las Vegas to take on the UNLV Rebels Saturday. The last time the two squads faced off, the Lobos squeaked by the Rebels 63-60. That game, on Jan. 21, UNM forced the win with its deep bench as three starters and a key bench player had early exits. The game required junior forward Alexa Chavez and junior guard Bryce Owens to be assisted off the court with injuries. Owens would later return in the contest to accumulate the team-high 15 points, but Chavez’s late injury sidelined her for the rest of the game.
A stagnant offense is not the best way to defeat the third best defense in the country. Running into the streaking first place San Diego State University Aztecs wasn’t necessarily the best situation for New Mexico, either. UNM suffered its fifth straight loss after a 63-46 thrashing by SDSU. The Lobos have now dropped six of their last eight games of the season. It’s the first time since 2007 that the Lobos have lost five consecutive games.
In the final stretch of the season, New Mexico will face a demanding road test against teams trying to knock the Lobos down from the number one spot in the Mountain West. UNM will face off against the San Diego State Aztecs and will immediately forge ahead to UNLV (10-13, 7-5 Mountain West) on Saturday without coming back to Albuquerque in between.
Today the New Mexico men’s basketball team will have to overcome something that its seen a lot of this season: adversity. The Lobos are coming off of a tough four-game losing streak to Mountain West Conference foes and the road doesn’t get any easier when they host first-place San Diego State at WisePies Arena. “Usually we are competing with them for championships but maybe we can play spoiler a little bit on the run to the championship,” head coach Craig Neal said. “It’s going to be a big game. They’re very talented. Coach (Steve) Fisher has done a great job, he’s had a great run this year.”
New Mexico stood tall against Nevada’s six-foot–eight center to claim a 63-45 victory over the Wolf Pack on Saturday at WisePies Arena. The Lobos needed all the defensive help they could get against Mimi Mungedi, the Wolf Pack’s dominant center. Going into the contest, head coach Yvonne Sanchez said the team would need to play collectively in order to contain the towering player from Libreville, Gabon. “Man, that kid is tough,” Sanchez said. “Our kids worked like heck just to get her out of there, which limited their scoring — but they did a nice job.”
As the conference tournament approaches, New Mexico has picked an unfortunate time to hit a brick wall. The Lobos are now fumbling over a four-game losing streak and have dropped five of their last six games. UNM certainly had the stage set to end the skid, but the Wolf Pack overcame a 15-point second-half deficit to take a 66-63 overtime victory at the Lawlor Events center. “The kids are working hard. We just have to figure out how to get over the hump,” head coach Craig Neal said in a release. “We played really well for a while, but we couldn’t finish the game. It’s one of those things that is upsetting.”
Some of New Mexico’s losses this year have looked downright ugly. There is one bright spot for UNM, however, and it starts with the team’s two seniors. Guards Hugh Greenwood and Deshawn Delaney are leading the team in scoring this season with 11.5 points and 12.7 points per game, respectively. Interestingly, both Greenwood and Delaney averaged more points per game through the team’s 10 losses this season than the 14 wins. Greenwood is averaging just 10.7 points per game in UNM’s wins this season, due in part to him sharing the ball a little bit more. He is averaging 3.5 assists per winning game, while only 3.2 in losses this year.
The New Mexico Lobos dug themselves in too deep a hole on Tuesday night against a stingy Colorado State team. The Lobos dropped their third straight game of the season to the 70-59 at Moby Arena in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The last time the New Mexico and Colorado State met, the Rams were ranked and had an unblemished record.
New Mexico continued its red hot play on Saturday, defeating Utah State 56-51. Head coach Yvonne Sanchez said beforehand that the Lobos needed to slow down Utah State’s freshman point guard Funda Nakkasoglu, and the team did just that. Nakkasoglu scored only 12 points and committed five turnovers at Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, in Logan, Utah. The guard/forward is averaging 15.6 points per contest, according to the Mountain West.
For the second straight game, the New Mexico men’s basketball team kept pace with its opponent until the end. The Lobos dropped yet another heartbreaker, this time to the Utah State Aggies 63-60 on Saturday. The team had multiple chances down the stretch to steal the victory, but couldn’t. “I thought Utah State played a very good game,” head coach Craig Neal said. “I thought they made shots when they needed to make shots, and it just seemed like we didn’t come ready to play. I thought we played hard, but we didn’t play up to our capabilities until about the last six minutes.”
New Mexico has had trouble finding its identity this season, whether it be at the offensive or defensive ends. Wednesday’s loss at Air Force highlighted this. UNM dropped a heartbreaker to the Air Force Falcons 53-49 after the Lobos couldn’t find their rhythm on the offensive side, hoisting up shots that they haven’t been known to hit this season. The Lobos trailed the Falcons much of the first half and went into halftime down two after a corner 3-pointer by senior guard Deshawn Delaney at the buzzer. UNM attempted 13 3-pointers in the first half and connected on six of them.
The last time New Mexico faced off against Utah State, the squad didn’t know what to expect from a team going through significant changes. On Jan. 10 the Lobos had to prepare for an Aggie squad that just lost two of its best players, forward Stephanie Bairstow and guard Makenlee Williams. This time around, UNM knows to key in on freshman standout Funda Nakkasoglu. Nakkasoglu nearly willed her team to victory after dropping 29 points in a tight 60-59 game at WisePies Arena. However, a late turnover by the freshman guard demolished any chance of their leaving the Pit victorious.
Eight straight home wins have given New Mexico a winning record for the first time all season, following Wednesday night’s 69-46 rout against Air Force at WisePies Arena. In addition to the hot record at home, UNM (11-10, 7-3 MW) has put together four consecutive regular season conference wins for the first time since the 2006-2007 season. “I don’t want to sit and compare one team to another, but I see a lot of this team in that team,” head coach Yvonne Sanchez said. “This team is very athletic, they’re very good, and they play well together.”
Solutions by The State News
