Lobos stun San Diego State

Maybe, just maybe, it’s OK for Lobo fans to come out of hiding and start falling in love with their basketball team again.

This rag-tag group of just eight scholarship players and a walk-on from Taos is proving that talent is secondary to effort, that determination is better than wishful thinking.

What’s more, the truth is the Lobos have no business winning games like they did Saturday night in The Pit against an opponent with more size, more talent and more depth.

And yet, there they were. In taking the next step in their surprising evolution, they got a game-winning jumper from point guard Antino Jackson with 22 seconds left to stun San Diego State, 79-75, to earn their second straight win and fourth in five games.

At 10-11 overall, the sub-.500 Lobos are somehow, some way alone in third place in the Mountain West Conference with a 5-3 record. Picked ninth in the preseason and given up for dead when head coach Paul Weir suspended one of

his top players and relegated another to street clothes on the bench, all The University of New Mexico has done is defy logic and keep giving people a reason to believe in Lobo hoops again.

“We’ve bottled something pretty cool,” Weir said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to keep up. We’re just going to keep grinding, keep working.”

As fundamental as it sounds, those two simple words — grinding, working — have come to define this year’s team. The Lobos trailed Saturday’s game by as many as 13 points and were behind for more than 32 minutes, but in the final minute with it tied at 75 it was Jackson who had the ball and a chance to put UNM in front.

He did just that, dribbling in space until he worked the shot clock under

10 seconds and pulled up from 15 feet with a swish in the face of San Diego State’s Devin Watson. Joe Furstinger capped it with 1.2 seconds left by sinking two free throws after Watson missed what would have been a game-tying shot from the lane.

“I knew when I got space I was going to shoot the ball,” Jackson said. “And that’s what I did.”

Jackson’s 24 points were a career high. More than that was the goose egg he posted in the turnovers column during his 28 minutes on the floor. Weir said all the points were nice, but the number that mattered was the lack of miscues. It’s something he has stressed relentlessly from Jackson and fellow point guard Chris McNeal.

“If anything, I gotta take the hit for overcoaching a little bit,” Weir said. “It took me a little bit of time to understand Antino’s game. It took me a little time to appreciate how great Anthony Mathis was, and I — probably early in the season — was doing some stuff that might have held them back. Organically as this season has unfolded, I think we’ve made some adjustments for both of them. Giving Ant a little bit of freedom.”

Mathis dropped in a career high of his own with 21 points. He scored 12 of the team’s first 18 points and had 15 at halftime. He and Jackson combined for 10 of the team’s 13 3-pointers and neither had a single turnover.

They even teamed up for a moment of excitement and poise, all at the same time. After the Lobos trimmed SDSU’s lead to a single possession, Mathis brought the crowd to its feet when he drew a charge under the Aztecs’ basket. In the scrum that followed he jawed with an SDSU player and then skipped toward the sideline near center court while waving his arms and telling the fans to make more noise.

In that moment, Jackson came in from behind and told him to calm down, to keep his composure.

“Sometimes I just get so wild, so into the games, I want to win so bad,” Mathis said. “That’s what great point guards do. They keep us composed and keep us within ourselves once we do.”

Down 48-38 at halftime, UNM seemed destined to come close and leave with a loss. They’d done it so many times before but, as Weir pointed out, the recent trend since a win over Wyoming on Jan. 10, is having a team that knows how to perform in crunch time.

They finally got over the hump with 2:59 left when Jackson nailed a 3-pointer to put the Lobos ahead, 75-73, to cap a 9-0 run that was part of a 13-2 run to close out the final five minutes. It comes on the heels of a similar 9-0 run to finish the win at UNLV earlier in the week.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s OK to start believing in UNM again.

Weir said he already believes in his players, although it’s been a process to get from early in the season to where things are now.

“I think they’re getting to know me a little bit and they’re getting to know me,” he said. “It was a lot of new players, it was a brand-new system, it was a brand new coach and we’re all kind of figuring each other out. I think we’ve both been open minded; I’ve been open minded with them, they’ve been open minded with me, and now we’re able to beat teams that, theoretically, we’re not supposed to be beating.”

GAME NOTES

San Diego State was shooting better than 60 percent for much of the first half but finished the game at 44.3 percent after UNM’s stingy defense held them to 8-for-26 shooting in the second half. … Four Lobos finished in double figures as Joe Furstinger had another double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Makuach Maluach had 15 points. … Dane Kuiper had a miserable shooting night, going 0-for-7 and ending the game with no points and three rebounds in 25 minutes. He did, however, have one of the biggest defensive stops of the night when he drew a charge as SDSU was bringing the ball up court late in the second half. Weir celebrated it by fist-pumping with a loud yell. … Watson and Malik Pope each had 16 points to lead the Aztecs. … Kuiper, Jachai Simmons and Vladimir Pinchuk combined for just one point in 59 minutes. … UNM outscored the Aztecs 41-27 in the second half, although the Lobos did miss seven three throws. At one point in the second half they missed on three straight 1-and-1s.

WOMEN

Despite a UNM single-game record 41 points from Cherise Beynon, the struggling Lobos lost their fourth game in five tries with a 97-89 setback at San Diego State on Saturday.

New Mexico (16-5, 4-4) was dominated on the glass, getting outrebounded 45-33. The Lobos turned it over just four times but had only 14 assists on 33 made baskets.

Beynon was 17-for-31 from the floor and finished with eight assists. UNM opened a 10-point lead in the first quarter but SDSU rallied to tie it at the end of the period, then pull away in the fourth quarter by outscoring the Lobos 31-22 in the final 10 minutes.

Alex Lapeyrolerie had 13 points for New Mexico and Jaisa Nunn 10 before fouling out. No one else had more than seven as Beynon’s 17 made baskets were more than the rest of the team combined (16).

McKynzie Fort had 32 points and nine rebounds for the Aztecs (9-9, 3-4) and Naje Murray had 29 points, hitting seven 3-pointers and finishing with six rebounds. SDSU shot better than 50 percent, continuing a disturbing trend of poor defense and issues on the glass for the Lobos.