Trying to move on
Lobos coach says changes are coming, but he’s not being specific
Yes, the season will go on. The Lobo men’s basketball team on Monday afternoon returned to a basketball court for the first time since their Christmas Day embarrassment in Hawaii — a 23-point loss to Washington State that capped a horrid week of basketball with four-consecutive losses, three of the gut-shot, embarrassing variety.
“Hopefully they haven’t lost their confidence,” UNM head coach Craig Neal said, “which I don’t think they have.”
Addressing the Albuquerque media for the first time since returning from Hawaii, Neal said changes will be coming. But he wouldn’t say specifically what that means — including if a change in the starting lineup could be in order — as the Lobos (7-6) prepare to host Nevada on Wednesday.
In Friday’s loss to Washington State, two days after a 30-point blowout to BYU, starting point guard Cullen Neal, the coach’s son, was benched after just eight minutes of play in the first half with zero points and five turnovers. That capped a four-game stretch of UNM committing 75 turnovers and the Eldorado High graduate committing 22 of those.
Asked Monday why he benched his team’s third-leading scorer against WSU, Craig Neal wasn’t interested in sharing his reason.
“My decision. It’s just my decision,” the coach said during the Monday press conference, which no players attended.
So, then, if the reason for the benching isn’t up for discussion, can the results — Cullen Neal sitting out entire halves at a time when no other UNM starter has done so this season — be expected in the future if the struggles continue?
“That will be my decision,” Craig Neal said.
As clearly energetic and lively as Monday’s practice was, the Lobos still have some serious questions to answer moving forward as Mountain West Conference play begins.
Primarily, are they even interested in playing a complete 40-minute game? It certainly didn’t look that way in their four losses between Dec. 19 and Dec. 25 in which they were outscored in the final eight minutes of each contest by a combined 39 points
(in 32 total minutes) with a lack of energy, urgency or apparent care about what was going on around them.
“I don’t think they quit,” Neal said, offering up the explanation that this is the youngest and most inexperienced team the program has had in his nine years at UNM (six as associate head coach, three as head coach) and that it is handling adversity for the first time.
“I think it’s an energy thing,” Neal added. “When you get down, sometimes in those tournaments, it’s hard to keep going. We’ll find out if they’ve got any fight. If they don’t take care of Wednesday, we can talk about that on Wednesday.”
He admitted he was caught off guard by the way the Auburn loss to start the Diamond Head Classic on Dec. 22 “took the wind out of (his team’s) sail.”
In Cullen Neal’s absence against Washington State, freshman Jordan Hunter played well. His joining Cullen Neal and leading scorer Elijah Brown, also a guard, together on the court for longer stretches in league games is a possibility. But the coach also wanted to remind a reporter of the outcome when Hunter played his seasonhigh 28 minutes last week.
“He played well, but we still got beat by 20,” Craig Neal said. “That’s what I mean. I don’t understand. He played well and he did what he is supposed to do and what he we expected him to do. But we still lost the game by 20 points. That’s unacceptable to us. That’s unacceptable to our guys. We’ve got to improve on that. But he’s showing signs.”
During the Lobos’ Monday afternoon practice, the team was as physical and active with one another as they’ve been much of the season. (Usually one practice is open to the media per week, and the Journal was the only media to attend Monday.) Longer, more strenuous practices could become the norm, the coach said. That would be a reversal of strategy from most of the season.
“That’s a double-edged sword,” Craig Neal said. “You can get a bunch of young guys and if you practice really, really hard and grind them then they might break down. That’s what I was concerned about. But at the same time, if you don’t practice hard, and you don’t practice with great intensity and you don’t go for a long period of time, then you can’t go through mental fatigue, and I think that’s what happened with some of our guys (last week).”