HE’LL TAKE HIS SHOT
Lobo Anthony Mathis is one of the nation’s top 3-point shooters, even if not everybody notices
Dane Kuiper and his Alaskan travel ball teammates were run off the court as sixth-graders at a tournament in Seattle.
Kuiper still remembers one kid on that team from Oregon who kept hitting 3-pointer after 3-pointer.
About a decade later, the 6-foot-7 Kuiper says one thing has changed about that player — “he was bigger than me, then,” but not anymore — and one thing definitely remains the same.
“He held up the 3-point sign like he does in games now — the same one,” Kuiper said.
That opposing player from a decade ago is Kuiper’s current University of New Mexico teammate, Anthony Mathis, the 6-3 sharpshooter from West Linn, Ore., who, by Kuiper’s memory, was already 6-3 as a sixthgrader and hasn’t grown since.
Kuiper certainly never forgot how good a 3-point shooter Mathis has always been and was reminded of it Friday night when Mathis’ 16 points in the final round of the CherrySilver game 3-point contest — followed by the familiar hand gesture — edged Kuiper. It was Mathis’ third 3-point shooting title in three tries at UNM (there wasn’t a 3-point contest in 2017).
But while Kuiper and seemingly everyone in the Lobos program seem to be well-versed in Mathis’ 3-point shooting ability, it seems some outside of Albuquerque have forgotten.
Jeff Goodman, the national college basketball guru who recently left ESPN to work for Stadium, published last week his preseason “Top
30 shooters in college basketball” list.
Two Mountain West players made the cut — Boise State’s Justinian Jessup at No. 21 and Utah State’s Sam Merrill at No. 23. Noticeably absent was Mathis, whose 47.3 percent 3-point shooting clip last season was good enough for fourth best in the NCAA, and tops in the MWC.
His 98 3s were third most in a season at UNM and his 3.6 makes per game during league play were higher than Merrill (3.5) and Jessup (2.2). Mathis hit 52.0 percent from beyond the arc in conference games. So what gives? “I don’t even need to say anything about that,” Mathis said with a big smile about Goodman’s list. “Lobo fans are going crazy about that, so I don’t need to say a word. They’re letting him have it about that.”
While a couple other college basketball analysts have Mathis among their top five on similar lists, Goodman’s omission is interesting in that his methodology was to ask coaches around the country for their suggestions on the candidate pool.
So was Mathis an oversight? After all, he started only 11 of 34 games last season, averaged just 22.4 minutes, and wasn’t even listed as a returning starter on the preseason information sheet handed out by the league. The talk about the Lobos all offseason seemed to be centered around the incoming transfers, not the returners.
Being overlooked in October seems to be something Lobos head coach Paul Weir secretly relishes.
“I tell them every day that nobody out there thinks any of them are all-league players right now,” Weir said, since none of the Lobos made the preseason media all-conference team. “And at the end of the day, I’ve always said we may not have the best player on the floor. Or the second best or even the third. But I want to make sure we always have the fourth-, the fifth-, the sixth-, the seventh-, the eighth-, the ninth- and the 10thbest players. That is who we are and how we will win.”
While that coach-speak is nice for the team culture, Weir readily admits Mathis is a special shooter and says he’d take him over anyone in the league.
Mathis has come about his success honestly. Be it assistants Chris Harriman or Jerome Robinson or one of the handful of team managers — pretty much whoever is available — Mathis is always trying to have someone help him work on his shot. On busy days, he may put up several hundred jumpers, not including the ones he takes in practice. It’s been that way since those AAU basketball days, when Mathis credits coach Terry Pritchard for first instilling the ethic that has him now among the nation’s top shooters — no matter who notices.
“He puts in the work, there’s no question about that,” Robinson said. “I think now, he’s even doing it with a little more urgency because it’s his last season. And it’s to the point now if he misses one, we start to wonder what’s wrong.”
Single-game tickets will be available online only throughout the weekend and then in-person Monday beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the Dreamstyle Arena Ticket Office or by calling the ticket office at 505-925-LOBO.