World, meet Tony Danridge. Danridge was on top of college basketball - even if it was just for one night. On Thursday at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, Danridge claimed the College Slam Dunk Championship belt with a double-windmill on ESPN, giving him a one-point victory over Charlotte's Charlie Coley III.
Willy Kesler doesn't have a shaman or a hyperbaric chamber. But he has modern medicine. And modern medicine has given the resilient right-hander an 0-2 count. Kesler, who made his first start in a 15-7 win over Texas Tech on Wednesday, has quickly healed from what doctors call ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction.
Fire up the grills was Ray Birmingham's message before Tuesday's game against Texas Tech. "We're going to barbecue their horse," the Lobo baseball head coach said. But it seems the Lobos forgot to throw on the propane tanks. UNM was handed its fifth loss of the season, 8-4.
NCAA rules allow for 15 football practices in spring, and head coach Mike Locksley and Co. need all the time they can get. For the first time in 11 years, the UNM football team started spring training with a new coach. After a disappointing 4-8 season in 2008, former head coach Rocky Long stepped down.
Missing free throws underscores a more perturbing issue that isn't conveyed in the 15-foot distance between the stripe and the basket. Because the trajectory of 10 free throws was off, the UNM men's basketball team lost out on an opportunity to beat Notre Dame and move on in the National Invitational Tournament.
A win on Saturday didn't appear to be in the picture for the UNM baseball team. But the Lobos put on their rally caps in a five-run seventh inning to boost UNM over BYU 9-5. The Lobos notched a 2-1 series win over the Cougs. Mike Brownstein had to hit a pitch if the UNM baseball team was going to salvage a win on Saturday at Isotopes Park.
It took the entire 40 minutes for the UNM women's basketball team to pull out its 65-61 win over Oregon State on Friday in the Santa Ana Star Center. The win puts the Lobos in the quarterfinals of the Women's National Invitational Tournament, where they will face Kansas on Monday.
The UNM softball team, 9-23, is in the midst of an 11-game losing streak and still has problems with inconsistency in its pitching. Following this trend, the Lobos were swept by Texas State over the weekend, losing two on Saturday, 9-8 and 4-1. Despite the two losses, the Lobos seemed to come out re-energized on Sunday, but fell 8-4 in the third game of the series.
Put it in the books. A 7-1 lead for the UNM baseball team heading into the top of the seventh inning looked impenetrable. The Lobos had the best start in program history engraved with what looked like their 23rd win, which would put them ahead of the 1973 club that opened the season 22-3.
Lee Emanuel captured what most college athletes only see in dreams: a national championship. The senior from Hastings, England, ran the mile in 4:00.65 to seal gold at the Indoor National Championships in College Station, Texas, on March 14, becoming the first Lobo runner in 32 years to win a national title.
No. 4 Vanderbilt advanced to the Sweet 16 on Monday at The Pit. No. 5 Kansas State, which made its last Sweet 16 appearance in 2002, was dismissed 74-61. For the first 30 minutes, it looked like the Kansas State and Vanderbilt fans were in for a barnburner similar to the two's 2005 NCAA Tournament game, when Vanderbilt pulled out a 63-60 victory in Seattle.
Staff Report The indoor track season culminated in coronation for one Lobo. On March 14, Lee Emanuel became UNM's first national champion since Michael Solomon won the 600-yard run in 1977. "Coach told me that if I thought someone was catching up to me, to just run harder and go after it," Emanuel told GoLobos.
Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" blared through the speakers at Isotopes Park every time the UNM baseball team scored a run against Northwestern. Suffice it to say, the Wildcats' pitchers might not be able to get the song out of their heads. The Lobos roped Northwestern 13-4 on Sunday, completing a four-game sweep on the heels of UNM's two-game sweep over No.
Halfway through the 2008 track season, Jarrin Solomon contracted pneumonia and severely pulled his hamstring, ending his hopes for competing at the national level and going to the Olympics. Halfway through this season, the senior has broken his school record three times, defeated former Olympians and became an All-American en route to the best finish ever by a Lobo sprinter at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Dairese Gary played like a beast, but the Lobos came up short in the opening round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament on Thursday. In a 75-67 loss to Wyoming, sophomore Gary kept the UNM men's basketball team in the game compliments of a late surge.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Remember Jim Boylen at The Pit - the hot-headed, confrontational head coach from Utah? The same coach who menacingly gestured toward Lobo head coach Steve Alford during one of the media timeouts on March 3 broke down after his Utes escaped with a 52-50 victory over San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference Championship on Saturday.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Amy Beggin has been terrific all year for the UNM women's basketball team, but her season might be remembered for two missed free throws in a 55-54 loss to Utah in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament on Friday. But it shouldn't be.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Even though the UNM women's basketball team finished exactly where it was predicted to in the Mountain West Conference preseason poll - fourth place - head coach Don Flanagan feels disrespected. "The Mountain West said it was a three-team tournament," he said.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - The buzz of the horn sounded for the UNM men's basketball team as the clock expired. And for the second time in as many years, the Lobos flat-lined, bowing out to Wyoming 75-67 in the first round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament on Thursday.
Solutions by The State News
