Lobos return to The Pit, stomp Rice
ALBUQUERQUE — That’s more like it. After a brief hiatus from its comfort zone, The University of New Mexico women’s basketball team returned to The Pit for Tuesday night’s second round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament. Behind a record-setting performance from a trio of players, the Lobos pounded visiting Rice, 93-73.
It sends UNM (25-10) into the tournament’s Sweet 16 round. The Lobos will host TCU on Thursday night in.
Center Jaisa Nunn led the way with 28 points and eight rebounds. She reached 1,000 career points in the process with her 14 points in the first half.
Cherise Beynon added 20 points and a career-high and Lobos postseason-record seven steals, while Tesha Buck dropped in 18 points with five steals and her 100th career 3-pointer.
“When us three get going then they need to figure out who they’re going to stop,” Beynon said. “They going to double Jaisa, they going to come on the drive to me or they going to take Tesha’s 3-pointer away?”
The answer, at least on this night, was none of the above. Nunn was a wrecking ball in the paint, scoring virtually at will against anyone the Owls threw at her.
Then there was Beynon, making life miserable with her attacking defense and aggressive play-like-it’s-your-last drives to the basket.
“Absolutely, we’re playing like it’s our last game,” Nunn said. “It could be our last game for the season and I think everyone has to keep their head on and keep their heads straight and make sure that we are going into every single game knowing that we want to play hard.”
The Lobos spotted Rice (23-10) an early five-point lead and trailed 14-13 late in the first quarter.
That’s when the team head coach Mike Bradbury expected to see during the last half of the Mountain West Conference race finally showed up. The Lobos went on a 14-0 run to seize control. It was part of a larger 21-3 run that opened a 34-17 lead that never got smaller than 14 the rest of the way. It grew to 18 by the end of the third quarter and as much as 25 before the buzzer.
The team’s 93 points were a school record for a postseason game, as were the 15 steals, the 23 assists and the 56 percent shooting.
Nunn’s 28 points were second most in school history for a postseason game, second only to Beynon’s 33 in the tournament’s opening round last week.
What’s more, the team’s 25 wins is tied for third most in program history, one short of the record 26 won by teams in 1997-98 and 2004-05.
As happy as he was to have his team do what it’s capable of doing, Bradbury was even happier with the lack of fouls. Riddled by foul trouble in the win over St. Mary’s in the opening round, the Lobos never had that issue this time. Nunn had four by game’s end but no one else had more than three.
“Yeah, we played a basketball game tonight,” he said. “That was nice. This is more what most teams playing at this time of year are used to. You know, they let you play basketball.”
The Lobos forced 22 turnovers and outscored the Owls 26-4 off miscues. As soon as UNM was able to establish that kind of pace to the game, it was apparent Rice had no chance.
The announced crowd of 3,302 sensed it. They were
vocal from start to finish, enough so that Bradbury said it was loud as it has been in The Pit all season despite it falling about 1,500 short of the team’s average attendance during the regular season.
“The teams that we play, they don’t get the crowds that we get,” Nunn said. “It’s just a shock to them. When we come in and start hitting shots and it’s just loud, they can’t hear the coaches and I think it’s very intimidating and we definitely have an advantage here.”
The WNIT bases its sites largely on who draws the biggest crowds, so it was an easy pick for the Lobos to host Thursday’s game against TCU. The game had to be Thursday because The Pit is booked by the New Mexico Activities Association for the annual state spirit competition on Friday and Saturday.
The winner advances to what would be the tournament’s elite eight March 24-26 against the winner of Thursday’s Michigan State-South Dakota game.
GAME NOTES
Tickets for Thursday’s game are $10 for adults and $4 for students. They go on sale Wednesday morning at www.unmtickets.com. … TCU has won its two WNIT games by an average of 23.5 points. … The Horned Frogs (21-12) finished fifth in the Big 12 regular season standings, then lost to then third-ranked Baylor in the conference tournament’s semifinals. They Lamar, then Missouri State in the first two rounds of the WNIT. … The Lobos and Nevada are the only Mountain West teams still playing. The Wolf Pack have reached the semifinals of the Women’s Basketball Invitational this weekend. … Madi Washington had 11 points for the Lobos in Tuesday’s game. … Rice’s Erica Ogwumike had 31 points, the most ever scored against UNM in a postseason game.