Udeze continues to believe in Lobos
Face a hot opponent in San Jose State
Morris Udeze isn’t done. Sure others may think this year’s UNM Lobos are done — losers of four in a row and at 6-7 in Mountain West play sitting at sixth place in the conference standings, one game behind Friday night’s now surprisingly huge late season road matchup with the San Jose State Spartans
But when the 6-foot-8 transfer from Wichita State looks around his locker room— one he chose to transfer to last season after a four-year playing career at Wichita State —he doesn’t see anyone who, like even some of their own fans have done on social media, has given up hope that this season still has far more to play for than just the hope of getting hot in next month’s league tournament.
“Every team has their slumps, and this is one of them,” said Udeze after the Lobos shocking home lost on Tuesday night to last-place Wyoming in the Pit.
“We had a great start to the season, and this (is) adversity time. Time for us to face adversity. How are we going to bounce back from this? Are we gonna give up and keep losing? Or are we bounce back and pick it up and start winning games?
“I feel like with this team, in the locker room, none of us have hung our heads. We have no toxic locker room players. I’ve been around a couple of locker rooms. I feel like this team is gonna bounce back.”
Udeze may be the only fifthyear player on the Lobos roster, but he’s not alone in being a veteran presence who played for another program and chose a transfer to UNM with one primary goal in mind: Playing in the NCAA Tournament. He is, however, the only one who has ever played in the Big Dance.
Fellow starters Josiah Allick (Missouri-Kansas City), Jamal Mashburn, Jr., (Minnesota) and
Jaelen House (Arizona State) all have plenty of Division I experience, but none has played in the Big Dance.
The latter of the bunch will be another game-time decision as an injured hamstring has kept House out of the past two games — losses to ninth-place Air Force and 11th-place Wyoming (out of 11 Mountain West teams).
As for Friday’s showdown with San Jose State, the Spartans (16-10, 7-6 Mountain West) are on the other side of the confidence coin — winners of two in a row and sitting in the significant fifth place in the standings in a league that awards byes to the quarterfinals to the top five finishing teams at the end of the regular season.
Of course, those same Spartans, one of the biggest teams in the country who rank seventh out of 363 Division I teams in rebounding margin (plus-8.1 per game) lost by 20 a month ago in the Pit to the now-struggling Lobos.
In that game, Udeze didn’t let the size advantage of the opposition slow him down, going off for 17 points and 14 rebounds -- one of his Mountain West-leading 10 double-doubles this season.
But since that game, the Spartans kept winning — even racking up wins against four teams the Lobos have lost to this season in Utah State, Air Force (by 30 points), Wyoming (by 20 points) and most recently UNLV on the road Tuesday to complete a season sweep of the Rebels.
Now, it’s the Lobos who are the more desperate team in need of getting things right on Friday night against a team they are looking up at in the standings.
And if history is any indication, the game won’t be easy.
While San Jose State has been the worst team in Mountain West men’s basketball since joining the league, they’ve had the Lobos’ number a bit.
In the previous four seasons, the Spartans had a Mountain West record of 8-62 — 4-4 vs. the Lobos (three wins in San Jose and one in Utah during the COVID season of 2021) and 4-58 vs. rest of the league.