UNM hoops: Women top Nevada as men fall

Some players were still feeling down after earlier stunning loss to SDSU

Jayla Everett leads her team to 85-74 victory, while Wolf Pack avenges earlier loss to men.

ALBUQUERQUE — She’s got speed, range and the ability to put the ball in the basket like few others.

What she doesn’t have is an easy time getting over an emotional letdown. Jayla Everett finished Saturday’s 85-74 win over Nevada in The Pit with a game-high 24 points, yet afterward admitted she had a hard time getting past her previous performance in a loss to San Diego State.

Given the ball in the closing seconds against the Aztecs, Everett missed a game-tying shot at the buzzer as the University of New Mexico women’s basketball team fell out of first place in the Mountain West Conference.

She redeemed herself against the Wolf Pack, scoring seven of UNM’s first 15 points as the Lobos led from start to finish.

Everett hit four 3-pointers and played with confidence and poise.

What no one other than teammates sees is how hard Everett can be on herself, and she was particularly rough after the loss last week. Everett said after Saturday’s game

that she has a hard time getting over things.

“I am one of those players because, like, I know what I’m capable of, so I get pretty down on myself when I mess up, and I gotta learn to stop it,” Everett said.

The Lobos scored the first eight points and led by 13 at halftime.

The lead grew to 16 in the second half and, aside from a brief spell in the fourth quarter when the Wolf Pack closed to within 64-59, it was the type of game where UNM seemed on the verge of blowing things wide open.

The hot start for Everett was all she needed.

“Felt really good for me especially because I couldn’t hit a shot to save my life in San Diego,” she said. “I was really down on myself.”

The bulk of UNM’s scoring came from four players as Everett, Jaisa Nunn (22 points), Aisia Robertson (18) and Antonia Anderson (11) combined for 75 of the team’s 85 points.

The Lobos were on fire in the first half. After what was their worst shooting game of the season against SDSU, they shot 73 percent from the field, including 14-for-17 (82 percent) from inside the 3-point arc.

“We didn’t work on it necessarily because of what happened in San Diego. It was what we had to be better offensively because of how we played against Nevada the last time we played them,” UNM head coach Mike Bradbury said. “Our post players were nonexistent there and we needed to get Jaisa established early.”

Nunn scored on the Lobos’ first two possessions and made eight of 10 shots in the game. She only had four rebounds, but that was due to the way the team was clicking offensively.

“There wasn’t a lot of rebounds to get there in the first half,” Bradbury said.

It also helped that Robertson stayed in the game.

Each of the Lobos’ conference losses has seen her battle foul trouble and foul out.

“I kind of took it personal, like I gotta be smart, I can’t put myself in situations where the call is in the ref ’s hands,” she said.

The fact that Robertson didn’t have any fouls by halftime allowed her to play free and smooth in the second half, giving her the space to be more aggressive.

Robertson finished with a double-double, adding 10 assists. It’s the fourth time this season she’s had at least 10 rebounds.

The Lobos remained in second place, staying a game behind Boise State (19-3, 10-1), which won Saturday at San Jose State. The Lobos head to San Jose, Calif., this week followed by a stop at Fresno State, part of a challenging stretch where they play four of six games on the road.

GAME NOTES

Raising awareness: The teams wore uniforms with pink numbers, lettering and highlights in honor of breast cancer awareness. A number of cancer survivors lined the floor to welcome the players out of the locker room.

Robertson got into the act by dyeing the top of her hair a shade of fuchsia, and most of the Lobos wore pink sneakers.

Assistant coach Vera Jo Bustos wore a pink blazer, while all three referees had pink whistles.

Odd statline: Lobos power forward Nike McClure has not missed a single shot in the last three games — but she hasn’t actually attempted a shot in two of them. She was 7-for-7 in the win over Fresno State last weekend and followed that with no attempts against San Diego State and Nevada.

She played 20-plus minutes Saturday and never scored, grabbing five rebounds with one steal and an assist.

“Hey, Nike’s fine,” Bradbury said. “I don’t ever look at that point total, you know, to judge how she’s doing.”

He joked that she’s merely trying to protect her shooting percentage.

“She’s never going to take another shot,” he said.