Weir method working as Lobos actually have postseason hope
ALBUQUERQUE — A crazy thing happened the first time University of New Mexico men’s basketball coach Paul Weir summoned his senior big man to his office in the Rudy Davalos Center.
It’s a visit Joe Furstinger had made countless times during his first three years as a Lobo. Every one of them went pretty much the same.
Player enters. Coach yells and screams. Player leaves with a serious attitude adjustment.
Over the course of his Lobo career, it’s a visit Furstinger was conditioned to dread. Nothing good ever came of it.
It was a place confidence went to die, where two-way communication wasn’t considered.
“The first time I got called into coach Weir’s office, I thought I was going to get yelled at and cussed out,” Furstinger said. “Then we actually had a conversation. I was, like, what is this? I’ve never been a part of this. I’m actually having a conversation with my coach where I’m not getting cussed out. I love coach Weir. He honestly means so much to me.”
UNM’s first-year head coach won over his players long before he started to win over a growingly stubborn fan base frustrated through the painful exit of former coach Steve Alford and four mostly dysfunctional years under his successor, Craig Neal. It was Neal who ripped Furstinger repeatedly, deferring to others for playing time and the allimportant issue of trust.
Weir has taken a drastically different tack, putting his faith in the team while offering constructive criticism and simultaneously giving the players firm consequences for not meeting expectations. Everyone is given a fair chance and every single player is given his coach’s attention.
“I keep repeating myself, but he just keeps believing in us, obviously,” said junior guard Anthony Mathis, a player who has followed a similar arc to Furstinger since arriving at UNM.
“I’ve come such a long way; we’ve all come such a long way from the past couple of years,” Mathis said. “He just truly believes in us and as long as you’re playing defense and giving it everything you have on defense, he just lets you do your own thing on offense as long as you’re not doing anything selfish.”
It hasn’t always been smooth. Weir has had to bench or suspend a number of players and behind-the-scenes support staff for falling out of step. It’s a tough-love approach that comes with a surprising bit of trust for a positive conclusion from the coach.
“It’s been a long year — for all of us,” Weir said. “These kids have worked harder than anyone will ever know. They
probably wondered what it is that they were doing and why they were doing it many times. But they kept doing it and this is thankfully some of the rewards for that.”
The Lobos have defied the odds in conference play and head into this week’s Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas, Nev., with more than a puncher’s chance of making a run. Their 17-14 record comes with a five-game winning streak that secured third place in the regular season standings.
It’s UNM’s best finish in four years. The Lobos haven’t won a game in the tournament since winning the entire thing in 2014.
Never to be confused with being nostalgic, the bigger picture of what his team is going through this season gives Weir an opportunity to laud his players for looking into the team’s recent history and, in some small way, tossing individual thoughts aside in favor of one goal, one team.
“It’s not easy to say, you know what, I won’t get to play 38 minutes like that guy over there,” Weir said. “I only get to play 25 minutes, and I don’t get to start every game and I don’t get the name on the back of my jersey and I don’t get all these things that other people get nowadays. We give so many things to kids these days now and they don’t ever feel like they’ve earned it and I hope that these kids at least feel like they’ve earned something. That was something I wanted to impart on them.”
Even players like senior Sam Logwood have learned lessons from the Book of Weir. In December he took a leave of absence and then sat out seven games in conference play when his personal issues threatened to derail his senior year and end his Lobo career.
After Saturday’s win against Fresno State in The Pit, Logwood took the mic when addressing the crowd for Senior Night. Near the end of it he doubled over, overcome with emotion. He took time to thank his coach for never giving up on him.
“Yeah, I didn’t know Sam liked me very much,” Weir said. “That was good to hear.”
With the 2017-18 season just days from reaching its end, it’s clear the players and their new coach have established a bond that is only now reaching the surface for everyone to see.
“The last coach never believed in me, never trusted me,” Furstinger said. “Ever since coach Weir came in he’s been 100 percent with me. I can actually have a conversation with my coach now.”