Furstinger leads in rout of Air Force
Opening four-minute sluggish stretch bores fans, but Weir loves team’s defensive effort
ALBUQUERQUE — Nothing like a little “Joementum” to start the conference season. Behind the latest big night from outta-nowhere statistical machine Joe Furstinger — a player teammate Dane Kuiper said generates his own momentum, or “Joementum,” as he called it — The University of New Mexico’s men’s basketball team opened Mountain West play Wednesday night with an 87-58 rout of visiting Air Force in The Pit. It was the third straight win for UNM (6-8, 1-0), which temporarily vaults it into a five-way tie for the conference’s top spot.
Furstinger had 12 points and a dozen rebounds, leading half a dozen Lobos in double figures against an Air Force team that never had a chance. Aside from an uncomfortable four-minute stretch to open the game, the Falcons (6-7, 0-1) were not a threat in any way whatsoever.
They led 2-0 through the first media timeout and held it until a Furstinger free throw finally got the Lobos on the scoreboard at the 15:18 mark. An Anthony Mathis free throw a minute later gave UNM a 6-5 lead and, really, that was the last anyone saw of the Falcons again. They never led again.
“That first four minutes of the game might’ve been my favorite four minutes of the season,” said Lobos head coach Paul Weir. “All we were doing was playing defense and we didn’t care about where the ball was going in. It was just going to be a war and I loved it. We didn’t worry about what happened on the offensive end.”
As passionate as he tries to sound about a stretch that made most Lobo fans moan, Weir’s sense of defensive self-awareness wasn’t exactly echoed by everyone.
“It’s frustrating not to hit shots for four minutes,” Kuiper said. “But it’s nice shutting them down and knowing that you can do that.”
Weir lauded his team’s effort in the first half,
holding Air Force to a seasonlow 20 points while opening up a 16-point lead. The Falcons nearly doubled their output in the second half but never did get things truly rolling. They had 17 turnovers and just seven assists, plus their entire scoring output of 58 points was matched by UNM’s five bench players.
All of them reached double figures, including a career-high 15 points from junior small forward Jachai Simmons. He hit three 3-pointers, more than doubling his previous high-water mark of seven points. Among all his scoring was an ally-oop dunk off a feed from Chris McNeal in the first half.
Weir said the trick with Simmons is knowing when to pull the plug. He’s the type of player who, metaphorically speaking, provides more peanut butter and less jelly.
Weir wasn’t able to clarify that metaphor, but Simmons seemed to get the point. As Weir spoke in the postgame press conference, the 6-foot-7 junior sat a few feet away, laughing about the reference.
“The thing with Jack is, and he’ll be the first to tell you, he’s got — at some point he’s going to crash,” Weir said. “We just have to make sure we get him out before he crashes. Sometimes it’s three minutes, sometimes it’s two minutes, sometimes it’s four and a half. But before he crashes, he’s really, really good. And then when he hits the wall, I’m begging for dear life.”
Simmons agreed, saying when he loses energy, he tends to do stupid things.
“When it’s time for me to get tired, I can do some bonehead plays,” he said.
On this night, not so much. He and the rest of the Lobo shooters were on point. As a team, they combined for 14 3-pointers with 21 assists on 31 field goals.
Point guard Antino Jackson, who beat the first-half buzzer with a long 3-pointer to open a 36-20 lead, had nine assists to go with 10 points while Simmons and Kuiper each had three steals.
It wasn’t all good, however. Starters Vladimir Pinchuk and Troy Simons continued to struggle. Simons was 1-for-9 shooting and had just two points and one rebound in 18 minutes. Pinchuk didn’t attempt a single shot and had just one rebound in 14 minutes.
No matter, particularly with all the fireworks provided by Furstinger. In what has easily been the best three-game stretch he has had as a college player, the senior power forward has scored 51 points and grabbed 34 rebounds (averages of 17 and 11.3) during the winning streak.
He grabbed his 10th rebound of the night with seven minutes remaining after McNeal missed a 3-pointer and he chased it down 10 feet from the rim. Most of his rebounds came in that fashion — with him reaching for a ball away from the basket against Air Force’s smaller lineup.
GAME NOTES
Up next: The Lobos head to Reno to face preseason MWC favorite Nevada, an impressive 80-65 winner at Fresno State on Wednesday night. The Wolf Pack (12-3, 1-0) was the only road team to win on the league’s opening night. Every other home team won by at least 12 points.
Peaceful protest: The game was briefly halted six minutes after tipoff when officials had ushers go into the stands to have a young fan put down a glowing red light. Seated about 18 rows from the floor behind the south basket, the little girl was playing with what appeared to be a decorative headband when referees stopped the game and pointed up into the seats.
Other fans protested the usher’s move by momentarily turning on the flashlights on their smartphones.
Road burns: Entering MWC play only two teams in the conference had yet to win away from home; UNM (0-3 road, 0-2 neutral) and Colorado State (0-4, 0-2). Air Force would have been part of that group were it not for a Dec. 2 road win at Denver, a victory that snapped a 22-game road skid dating back two full years.
The Falcons trailed 27-5 against the Pioneers, their second-largest deficit overcome this season. The other was from a 27-4 hole early against Western State in a game they wound up winning by 12 points.
UP NEXT
Saturday: New Mexico (6-8, 1-0) at Nevada (12-3, 1-0), 3 p.m. in Reno, Nev.
TV: AT&T SportsNet Radio: KKOB-AM 770 Live stats: GoLobos.com