Weir tries to avoid spotlight in Aggies rivalry
Former NMSU coach tries to keep focus on UNM players
ALBUQUERQUE — NBA megastar Kevin Durant fired a salvo at the media this week when he said he was done fielding questions about his beef with teammate Draymond Green.
The message: It’s not about me anymore.
Paul Weir would like to take a page out of that book and use it to tone down the personal angle to this weekend’s latest installment of the Rio Grande Rivalry. Weir’s University of New Mexico men’s basketball team hosts New Mexico State on Saturday afternoon in The Pit.
Lest anyone forget, Weir was NMSU’s head coach just 17½ months ago. All he’s done since he got to Albuquerque is politely fielded questions about his former team, including both of last year’s emotional encounters that the Aggies swept.
It’s on to Round 3, this time with Weir’s Lobos sitting much prettier than they did this time a year ago. The Lobos are off to a 2-0 start as Weir has completely retooled the roster with talented big men and new guards. He has also kept the same identity of pressure defense and long-range shooting.
And still, the questions about his past with NMSU persist.
“Even now, I don’t want this game to be about me,” he said. “I think inevitably last year, particularly Game 1 down there [in Las Cruces], it became that. I would hope as time goes on this becomes less about me and more about the Lobos and the Aggies, and the basketball game that they’re about to play.”
Fair enough. The Aggies (2-1) are coming off a loss to future UNM opponent St. Mary’s, a 73-58 loss in which they were cold from the field (36 per-
cent) and even colder from the perimeter (2-for-18). They only turned the ball over six times but they never got their fastbreak game going, scoring just eight points in transition.
Weir said the loss of key players on last year’s team is having the same impact on NMSU that the mass exodus of players prior to his arrival at UNM had on the Lobos.
He said this year’s team has already reached a point where it won’t necessarily adjust its approach just because an opponent offers a confusing look. If NMSU has done anything well over the years, it’s force other teams to alter their approach.
“For us, our style is our style,” Weir said. “We adjust it as we see fit, just as we have in the three, four games we’ve played.”
Those adjustments are subtle by design, he said, because the Lobos are still trying to figure one another out. With seven new players in the rotation, getting to know one another is more important than scrapping the playbook to respond to someone’s style.
That’s where the Lobos’ four big men come in. Newcomers Karim Ezzeddine, Vance Jackson, Corey Manigault and returning sophomore Vladimir Pinchuk offer quality depth and distinct styles in the paint. Manigault and Pinchuk are players already penciled in as low post threats while Ezzeddine and Jackson have the range to take their game beyond the 3-point line.
“I felt even going into this year he was maybe going to do a little bit more than people anticipated,” Weir said of Pinchuk, a player who struggled mightily during his freshman season a year ago. “That freshman year is hard. It’s hard for a lot of kids, but if you’re getting minutes — consistent minutes — I think those really show up kind of down the road.”
Pinch leads the team in minutes played and is averaging 9.5 points and 6.0 rebounds in two games. It all adds up to enough talking points for Weir, enough to keep the conversation about the Lobos and Aggies to just that — to a certain extent.
“I think it becoming me, or anything that involves me is unfair to [the players],” he said. “Is that going to be an inevitable sideline to all this? Probably so, but not anything I would ever want to incorporate into anything.”