Lobos men get short breather before tourney play begins
UNM women beat San Jose State with 30-point margin in conference opener
ALBUQUERQUE — All was quiet around the Davalos Center on Monday.
The University of New Mexico’s women’s basketball team was already in Las Vegas, Nev., preparing for its Mountain West Conference Tournament opener and the Lobo men were given the day off by head coach Paul Weir.
The only people running around the practice facility and The Pit were representatives of the New Mexico Activities Association in preparation for Tuesday’s start of the state tournament.
Weir gave his players time off to get what he called “domestic” and “academic things” in order. That’s because the Lobos are scheduled to leave town Tuesday morning for Thursday’s quarterfinal matchup against either Wyoming or San Jose State in the Thomas & Mack Center.
“Whether it’s your laundry, your rent, just being regular kids which these kids are, which nobody ever really gets to see,” Weir said when talking about the “domestic” issues that needed attention. “Today was the day to get all those things in order so that starting [Tuesday] we’re just completely focused the rest the week with no distractions.”
UNM (17-14, 12-6) will be the No. 3 seed in the tournament after closing the regular season on a five-game winning streak. They earned a bye out of the first round and will play in Thursday’s late game against the winner of Wednesday’s 6-11 matchup.
The Lobos are looking to end a three-game losing streak in the tournament, while Weir is looking to extend his own personal three-game winning streak in Las Vegas. He coached New Mexico State to the WAC Tournament championship in Sin City last March.
To do that, the last thing he wants to do is overload his players with information and meaningful tasks.
“I think it’s hard to throw a lot at kids these days with all the distractions that they have in their life with their phones and the life that these young people live,” he said. “Throwing too much at them about a Mountain West Conference championship, who we play Saturday, who we play Friday, then there’s fans and then there’s this, there’s that — there’s just so much going on.”
The solution is to dial it down a few notches and control the simple things.
The rest, Weir said, will take care of itself based on sheer muscle memory.
Infirmary
Makuach Maluach is expected to be fine for Thursday’s tournament opener. He had a bruise on his hand going into the regular season finale against Fresno State last weekend and struggled to one of his lowest point totals of the season.
He was just 1-for-6 shooting and had three points in 16 minutes. His scoring total has gone down each game since dropping 20 at Wyoming on Feb. 20.
Weir said X-rays revealed no structural damage but it did have an affect on the 6-foot-5 freshman.
“Mentally it just kind of got to him a little bit,” Weir said. “I think that was part of the reason he struggled.”
Junior Jachai Simmons was not with the team for the Fresno State game and the 6-foot-7 small forward has not played since the trip to Wyoming. Weir said Simmons was “emotional about some things” at halftime of that game and both his long- and short-term availability to the team are in question.
Simmons recently took time off after the death of his father and he has played only sparingly since the start of conference play. Weir said his current issues have nothing to do with legal or academic problems.
“He’s kind of had a rough go here of late,” Weir said. “Some things are just bigger than basketball.”
Cherise Beynon had a doubledouble while Jaisa Nunn was a rebound short of that mark as UNM held San Jose State to 27-percent shooting in a 84-54 Lobos victory in the first round of the MWC Tournament on Monday night in Las Vegas.
It was New Mexico’s largest margin of victory in the tournament in nine years.
Beynon had 14 points and 11 rebounds with seven assists and Nunn had 19 points with nine rebounds in just 24 minutes.
Seeded No. 6, UNM (23-9) moves into Tuesday’s quarterfinals against No. 3 Wyoming at 9:30 p.m.
Other matchups have No. 1 Boise State facing Air Force, No. 2 UNLV getting Nevada and No. 4 Fresno State going against Colorado State.
The semifinals will be Wednesday night with the championship game Friday afternoon.
New Mexico’s Tesha Buck has been named the newcomer of the year in the Mountain West while Beynon was honored for a third straight year as an allconference selection in voting results announced by the league on Monday. Nunn was also voted all-MWC.
Buck was UNM’s third-leading scorer during the regular season, averaging 14.4 points while setting the school record for 3-pointers in a season with 89.
Beyond was second on the team in scoring at 16.5 points and was first in assists with 6.9. She established a new program record with 215 assists and capped her four-year Lobo career as a top-10 player in points, rebounds, assists, made field goals 3-pointers and minutes played.
Nunn led the team in scoring at 16.6 with a conference-best 10.2-rebounding average. She was the only MWC player to average a double-double this season.