Simons, who is in Weir’s doghouse, to miss another game
Coach says guard’s failure to control emotions in games, ejection led to benching; injured Logwood still out
ALBUQUERQUE — Troy Simons was back on The Pit floor Monday afternoon, flashing that familiar dyed hairdo and his No. 31 cherry uniform as if nothing’s happened. But something has happened. Something is wrong. The University of New Mexico shooting guard has missed the Lobos’ last three games for, as head coach Paul Weir says, his failure to control his emotions when things get a little salty. While the 6-foot-3 junior out of Pittsburgh is still on the team, he’s no closer to getting into Wednesday’s game at UNLV than the fans sitting
in the 20th row.
Simons as averaging 8.6 points and 2.7 rebounds when he went inactive. The Lobos have won two of those three games as the eight players who remain in good standing have banded together to breathe new life into a team that has struggled in this, Weir’s first season with the program.
Weir said he has had Simons go through a series of steps to get back into good graces.
“When I get to a point that I feel [Simons has] either done enough of those or made enough growth and it’s time to maybe give him a chance to compete again, then I’ll do that,” Weir said. “I don’t feel like that’s not happening for the UNLV game, but I don’t think it’s some far-off thing where he’s never playing again or he’s in this bad dog house or anything like that.”
Simons was suspended 11 days ago by the Mountain West Conference following his second ejection for picking up a pair of technical fouls in single game. If the league hadn’t stepped in with its mandatory one-game disciplinary act, Weir said he would have.
An outburst in practice the week before the Lobos went to Boise State was followed by Simons getting T’d up twice against the Broncos on Jan. 3. Those acts, Weir said, were the final straw.
“He’s just had some moments where he just hasn’t been able to control himself, and at the
Boise game, I just kind of felt to myself that, you know what, enough has happened where I need to step in and I’m going to have to put some things in place before he’s going to be allowed to compete again,” Weir said.
Also on the outside looking in is senior Sam Logwood. The 6-8 power forward has been dealing with a shoulder injury and missed the last three games.
While Simons practiced Monday, Logwood lingered by himself behind the team bench. The only times he strolled onto the floor were during breaks to shoot righthanded shots by himself in the lane. Weir didn’t set a date for his return, either.
While Logwood’s issue may well be more than his health, Simons’ case is clearly more serious.
“It could technically be labeled a suspension, but I think that’s a pretty harsh term,” Weir said, adding, “I don’t think a return is necessarily immanent, but it’s not out of the question or still really far off, either.”
Weir described him as a “tremendous teammate” who was accepted by the players and coaches, alike.
“Troy just has some moments where his anger gets the best of him,” Weir said. “It’s happened at practice, it’s happened in games, it’s happened in some pretty inopportune moments.”
Weir said he has sought the opinion of the rest of the team regarding the status of Logwood and Simons.
“I’ve met with them quite frequently about how do they feel about these guys coming back to the team and I want it to be as much their decision as it is mine as well,” he said. “They’ve earned that right to kind of go down their own path here and part of what they think is going to impact those decisions as well.”
If there’s a message to be gleaned from all of this, Weir said, it’s got everything to do with work ethic and showing up every day with the right attitude.
“In life we can’t control a lot of other things but we can control what we put into this and I really wanted to make sure we increased our work capacity and our ability to just grind,” he said.
TEAM NOTES
MacD still out: Forgotten big man Connor MacDougall is still trying to get his lost redshirt year back from the NCAA and the Pac-12 conference. A transfer from Arizona State who played all of last season with the Lobos as a sophomore, the 6-foot-9 power forward learned last fall that he’d lost a year of eligibility and was declared a senior rather than a junior.
He then injured his foot in UNM’s exhibition game on Oct. 27 and has not played in the regular season. Weir has yet to announce that MacDougall is taking a medical redshirt year, making him eligible to return next season.
For the time being, the big man is taking part in practice and going full speed with all the other players. In Monday’s simulated game, he frequently went head-to-head with Joe Furstinger and was on the same team as incoming recruit Vance Jackson, a 6-9 transfer from UConn.