Inconsistency runs wild as Lobos beat ENMU
De La Cerda leads UNM past stubborn ’Hounds
Thursday night’s exhibition offering at the Pit was an evening of bipolar basketball.
The University of New Mexico women’s team looked great at times, awful at others and got more than it may have wanted from fiesty Eastern New Mexico in an 88-72 exhibition victory.
Jaedyn De La Cerda scored 21 points to lead four players in double figures for the Lobos. De La Cerda sparked a big UNM run in the second and third quarters that finally gave the hosts some breathing room.
That came only after the Greyhounds had the better of the game’s first 12 minutes. ENMU played with more energy early and held a surprising 25-19 lead early in the second quarter.
Iyanna McCurdy scored 14 points and Rio Rancho High alum Julia Chavez scored 11 on 4-for-4 shooting for ENMU, which shot 53.7% from the field overall.
“We’ll get a lot out of that,” UNM coach Mike Bradbury said. “Eastern played hard and they played good basketball. We obviously have some things to work on (Friday) at practice.”
Consistency was not part of the Lobos’ repertoire on Thursday. They put together two 10-0 runs in the first half and hit the Greyhounds with a 22-7 surge to start the third quarter. The latter gave UNM its largest lead at 69-42.
But Eastern New Mexico had some extended runs of its own — a 9-0 surge to take the lead in the first quarter and a 10-2 tear in the fourth that cut UNM’s lead to 75-61 and prompted Bradbury to bring his starters back into the contest.
“A little bit sloppy, and that’s not how we play,” De La Cerda said. “We didn’t take a big step forward tonight like we should have. We’ve got to learn from this and be better.”
UNM’s starters certainly had their moments. Antonia Anderson racked up
15 points, five rebounds and four steals in 23 minutes, while LaTora Duff added 14 points, and Shaiquel McGruder amassed nine points, nine rebounds five steals and three blocks.
But as promised, Bradbury emptied his bench early and the reserves largely struggled to contain the hustling Greyhounds. ENMU’s bench outscored New Mexico’s 33-27.
The one real exception was freshman point guard Aniyah Augmon, who provided nonstop hustle in her 16 minutes of action. Augmon finished with eight points, eight rebounds and a steal.
“Aniyah played really hard, I’ll give her that,” Bradbury said. “She’s still learning, but she made things happen.”
Freshman wings Paula Reus and Viané Cumber endured a cold shooting night, finishing a combined 5-for-24 from the field. Cumber scored 11 points but went 3-for-11 from 3-point range after finishing 4-for-4 against Western Colorado.
Inconsistent play notwithstanding, UNM showed flashes of the kind of play it will need when the regular season opens. The starters’ dominant play to start to start the third quarter should have been more in evidence
rothroughout the game, De La Cerda said.
“I think that was an expectation,” she said of the thirdquarter surge, “because we didn’t do that in the first quarter. We definitely can’t take any teams easily. We need to bring the energy every time out.”
Thursday’s game was called with 34 seconds still on the clock when an ENMU player required medical assistance on the bench. She appeared to be responsive and was talking with EMT personnel several minutes later, however.