Lobos try adapting offense
With Williams out, adjustments needed
If you thought the Lobos looked at times in Saturday afternoon’s home loss to San Jose State like a team just learning to play with one another, you aren’t alone.
Even the players admit there is a late-season learning process they’re struggling to adjust to.
In the absence of two starters, primarily senior forward Tim Williams, the Lobos are trying for one of the few times in the past decade to run an offense without having an above average to elite scorer in the frontcourt to throw the ball to.
While Williams, and his 17.9 points per game, remains out indefinitely with a stress reaction in his left foot, the new fourguard lineup being broken in has been inconsistent at best. UNM on Saturday fell to 14-10 overall and 7-5 in Mountain West play.
“I believe it’s something that can be fixed — learning how to play within it,” said junior wing Sam Logwood. “It’s something new that we’ve been doing. It’s always been there, but it hasn’t been played as much. Now that we’re playing in it a lot, it’s kind of bringing out the flaws in it and we’ve got to work through it.”
Among the issues is the guessing game it forces the Lobos coaching staff into, not knowing from game to game which players are going to score outside of Elijah Brown (19.0 points per game) and what type of offense to run.
On the one hand, a higher-tempo guard-oriented offense looked great in Wednesday’s road win over UNLV. Freshman guard Damien Jefferson went off for career highs in points (13), minutes (36), rebounds (nine) and assists (four). It also benefitted senior center Obij Aget to the tune of 15 points and 11 rebounds.
The high tempo resulted in 80 points and a Lobos win.
Then came Saturday’s low-tempo game where that pair of starters combined for more turnovers (six) than points (four).
“I think it all has to do with activity,” Lobos coach Craig Neal said when asked about those two players’ drop off from just three days prior. “My job is to get those guys active and playing at a higher level.”
Added SJSU coach Dave Wojcik, “We kept our composure. We had a good poise. We had a good flow to the game offensively. I thought we controlled the tempo of the game for us.”
When the Lobos scoring wasn’t coming from the guardoriented offense on Saturday, Neal tried to get at least some scoring from his frontcourt, but with little success.
Aget, the 7-foot-1 senior starter, played just 13 minutes with two points, two turnovers and the Spartans outscored UNM while he was on the court by seven points.
Joe Furstinger, a 6-9 junior, scored seven points and had two turnovers in 18 minutes, but took only one shot in the second half.
And 6-9 sophomore Connor MacDougall, who has the most offensive potential among UNM’s big men outside of Williams, couldn’t stay on the court long enough to be effective. In his 11 minutes, MacDougall scored four points before fouling out. He averaged one foul in every four SJSU possessions he was in the game (he played 20 SJSU possessions and 19 UNM possessions).
“We had a hard time scoring the ball tonight, which we thought we would have that problem sometimes (with Williams out),” Neal admitted, “but not as bad as we did tonight.”
The problems were hardly limited to offense, though. And the blame for Saturday’s loss, Logwood said, was shared by everyone.
“I feel like it’s both the coaches and the players,” Logwood said. “We’re a team. We all have to do our parts to come here, perform and get wins. Personally, I feel we didn’t play good enough defense like we’re capable of doing. I wouldn’t say it’s the coaches fault, it’s more the players fault defensively. That’s something we all have to look in the mirror and get better from.”