Struggling Lobos are worthy of your faith this season
Monday marked the 38th anniversary of Lobogate officially blowing up and UNM basketball getting permanently scarred by corruption, scandal and a tarnished image.
Dec. 17, 1979, was the day head coach “Stormin” Norman Ellenberger was fired for orchestrating a massive cheating scheme that included forged transcripts, payments for improper grades and a complete disregard for NCAA rules. Suspensions, defections and court dates were part of the fallout.
The 1979-80 season was a total loss. Only four scholarship players remained as interim coach Charlie Harrison did his best to hold things together with a ragtag group of mostly walkons and last-second fill-in players. A campuswide tryout in the wake of Ellenberger’s dismissal left him with a team most fans couldn’t recognize without a name tag.
Those guys started 4-7 and finished 6-22 with just two wins in the old Western Athletic Conference and none on the road. Despite all the problems, despite all the losing, that team continued to draw enormous crowds and gained the admiration of fans who fell in love with it simply due to its effort in what was easily the worst period in program history.
In case you haven’t noticed, this year’s team isn’t doing too well, either. It’s off to a worse start than the Lobogate squad.
New coach Paul Weir didn’t inherit a scandalous situation as bad as Harrison, but it’s as clear now as it was back then that the Lobos are overmatched and going to be the underdog in virtually every game they play from here until it’s over in early March.
Unlike 38 years ago, not all fans have jumped on board. Aside from the last two games that drew the largest crowds of the season, it’s highly doubtful this team will play before a sellout at home. It’s entirely likely that this group will struggle to get much further than Harrison’s half-dozen wins.
The community-wide love affair that has permeated Lobo hoops for the last 50 years continues to slide to a point where a crowd of 13,000-plus for nationally ranked Arizona over the weekend is hailed as a return to The Pit of old. It wasn’t, but after the game, Wildcats coach Sean Miller said this is a year to be cherished by Weir and the fans.
It was an unexpected bit of advice from a man whose intensity and singleminded approach to winning made it seem as though he’d be the last person to say now — amid all the losing — is the time to have fun and have some pride.
The coaches, the players and in the fans, he said, are on the ground floor of a rebuilding project that will take a while but one that literally reshapes a team that not only needs the fans’ support but warrants it.
Go ahead and complain about the ticket prices, the lack of talent, the slow start; even throw Craig Neal or Sam Logwood under the bus if it makes you feel better. It won’t help the team’s win total one iota. Same, too, if you buy a seat and wear your cherry T-shirt.
But absolutely enjoy the ride and give these guys your patience. They deserve it.