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.”
The New Mexico men’s and women’s track and field teams will look to defend their Mountain West Championships starting today at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Last season’s conference sweep at the indoor conference championships was the first in UNM history. This year, the Lobos will have the luxury of another home meet to defend its titles. For the men’s team, it will be a chance to make it three consecutive titles, following a winning performance at the 2013 championship in Boise, Idaho.
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.
It wasn’t the prettiest baseball at Lobo Field on Sunday. In part due to blustery conditions, New Mexico and Air Force combined to make nine errors — six of which belonged to the Falcons — in the Lobos’ 15-5 victory. Air Force committed five errors in the first three innings to help UNM build a 9-3 lead. The Lobos stayed disciplined at the plate, drawing six walks over that same time frame. As a team, the Falcons combined for 12 walks.
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.”
Lobo Field will be the site for the New Mexico baseball team’s first road series of the season. No, that’s not a typo. Because of inclement weather in Colorado Springs, Air Force was unable to host UNM and will instead come to Albuquerque for a three-game Mountain West series that begins today. However, the Falcons will still be designated as the home team this weekend.
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 second half surge against San Diego State preserved New Mexico’s eight-game winning streak during Wednesday night’s 63-47 victory. UNM came out sluggish offensively against the Aztecs, shooting just 9-27 from the field at the Viejas Arena. However, head coach Yvonne Sanchez’s second half adjustments sparked rhythm on the offensive side of the ball. Senior guard Antiesha Brown proved to be a big part of the Lobos’ first half problems. UNM’s leading scorer was unable to put anything together, going 0-2 from the field in the first 20 minutes of play.
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.
For the past few years, the New Mexico football program has not been a main attraction for New Mexico Athletics. In fact, the 2014 season generated the second-lowest ticket revenue in seven years. The lowest ticket revenue was the 2011 season in which head coach Mike Locksley was fired from the University following his troublesome tenure with UNM.
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.”
UNM rallied back from a 2-0 deficit against Oregon State for a 7-4 victory in the Surprise Tournament on Sunday. The Lobos (2-1) scored their seven runs across the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Freshman Carl Stajduhar hit a two-run home run in the sixth to gain a 3-2 lead. Stajduhar went 2-5 on the night. Freshman pitcher Luis Gonzalez tossed 4.1 innings of no-hit relief for the win. Junior starter Drew Bridges threw just three innings and allowed two runs.
The New Mexico men’s and women’s track and field teams combined to break or tie six school records this weekend at the Don Kirby Invitational. Junior sprinter Ridge Jones broke the school records in both the 60- and 200-meter sprints. He clocked in at an altitude-adjusted 21.43 in the 200, breaking Larry Davis’ 14-year-old record of 21.44, to take seventh in the field. Jones also created a new 60-meter record with a time of 6.65, which earned him second place in the race. The junior had tied former Lobo and current USC Trojan Beejay Lee earlier this year with a time of 6.69.
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.”
New Mexico’s newest sport makes for an enticing lure for potential recruits to UNM’s volleyball program. Head coach Jeff Nelson and assistant head coach Lisa Beauchene are heading the sand volleyball program, which Nelson has taken on in addition to his duties indoors. Beauchene said the sand play appeals to a broader range of potential players. “It’s a way for us to get an edge on some of the teams that are very good programs,” Beauchene said. “It really complements our weather here, and brings some interest from the northern states and the east where maybe they don’t have that opportunity.”
Solutions by The State News
