UNM women expect tough test in exhibition
Lobos open season against Lubbock Christian tonight
Think again. That’s University of New Mexico women’s basketball coach Mike Bradbury’s advice to anyone expecting his team to coast to an easy exhibition victory tonight at Dreamstyle Arena.
The Lobos are scheduled to open the 2018-19 season with the first of two exhibition games tonight against Lubbock Christian. This one does not qualify as a comfortable warmup. Consider: Lubbock Christian has two players on its roster from a squad that won an NCAA Division II National Championship in 2016. The Lady Chaps have 11 players back from a squad that finished 31-2 and reached the Division II Elite Eight last season.
Still not convinced? LCU already has an exhibition game under its belt this season — a 62-51 victory at SMU on Sunday that Lubbock Christian led by a double-figure margin throughout the second half. The Lady Chaps are 4-1 all-time in exhibitions against Division I teams with the lone loss to UConn.
Little wonder that Bradbury was in midseason form while prodding the Lobos through an intense practice Monday afternoon.
“Lubbock Christian is used to winning,” Bradbury said. “They beat up SMU, and they’re not going to give us anything. We better be ready to play, because they’re very capable of making teams look bad.”
Bradbury has no interest in looking bad but conceded he’s not entirely sure what to expect from UNM in its first competitive outing. As of Monday he still had not finalized a starting lineup.
Senior post Jaisa Nunn and junior point guard Aisia Robertson will start, but the other three starters will
be picked from a pool of five players, Bradbury said. That group includes two freshmen (guards Jayla Everett and Ahlise Hurst), two sophomores (guard Madi Washington and wing Antonia Anderson) and one senior (transfer post Nike McClure).
“I’m still working on it,” Bradbury said, “but we’re planning to get everyone into this game. We’ll find out a lot about ourselves from this game, that’s why we scheduled it.”
Lubbock Christian is a consensus pick to win its conference after finishing 14-0 in Heartland games last season. Sophomore Maddi Chitsey, a 6-foot-2 forward, was named to the preseason all-conference team. Chitsey scored a game-high 15 points and hit three of the Lady Chaps’ 10 3-pointers Sunday at SMU.
“They can really shoot it,” Bradbury said, “and they execute extremely well. We’ve been telling our players, ‘Lubbock Christian is so disciplined they expose stupid.’ We need to take care of the ball and try not to get exposed too often.”
UNM will have a height advantage as Chitsey is the tallest member of an LCU team that does not employ a traditional post. The Lady Chaps hit 224 3-pointers and shot 36.5 percent from long range last season.
The Lobos, as they typically have under Bradbury, will try to force a fast tempo and amp up the defensive pressure. They’ll undoubtedly look to get the ball inside to Nunn early and often. The 6-3 post averaged a double-double (17 points, 10.2 rebounds per game) last season.
Where other scoring will come from remains to be seen. UNM graduated three of its top four scorers after finishing 25-11 last season and has just Nunn and Washington back among its top six point producers. Still, the additions of transfers Robertson and McClure and a highly touted freshman class have fueled considerable optimism for the upcoming season.
“We have a lot of good pieces,” Bradbury said. “Are we ready to play now? I don’t know. We’ll find out in a hurry (tonight).”