As season tips off, UNM fans, coach waiting to see how Lobos stack up this year
UNM opening at Rice as pandemic-delayed season begins
The fishbowl that is Lobo basketball can be intense.
Even the slightest bit of success can turn players into local celebrities, transform coaches into icons and further entrench the team as the biggest, brightest show in town. As anyone can tell you, there is no offseason for UNM hoops.
Practices are regularly attended by multiple media outlets and games are, for better or worse, scrutinized by thousands of fans who cheer every basket and analyze every move.
Nothing like a pandemic to curb of all that.
Relegated to a confusing life of practices in Texas and games anywhere it can find them, the University of New Mexico men’s basketball team finally tips off its 2020-21 regular season Sunday in Houston, a mere 72 hours after inking a deal to play Rice in a nonconference game, and then use the Owls’ facility for at least one more game before heading northwest to Idaho for the Mountain West opener at Boise State.
The question about what to expect out of this year’s team is anyone’s guess.
“We’re waiting to know like you are, to be honest with you,” coach Paul Weir said when asked what fans should hope to see this season.
No media have seen the team practice. No fans have seen anything more than the occasional Facebook or Instagram photo from workouts in Albuquerque or in the Texas Panhandle.
With a dozen new faces on the roster, having fans finding a familiar name to hang their hopes on is not that easy. Senior Makuach Maluach is the lone returning starter from a team that lost its top five scorers and top four rebounders.
Weir said this year’s team will more closely resemble his first at UNM. The 2017-18 squad didn’t have a huge amount of size but they became known for its speed, heart, up-tempo offense and fullcourt press. Those Lobos also shot a ton of 3-pointers and came within one win in the Mountain West championship of reaching the Big Dance.
“We had a couple of scrimmages out in Texas and we were playing at 100 miles an hour,” Weir said. “We fouled a lot, and I told the guys after the first one, we’re going to go from 100 and we’re going to pull this thing back to about
because I’ve got to find out if we’re fouling because we just haven’t played anybody, and it’s a lack of just contact against somebody else or we’ve got to get used to playing at this speed.”
Exactly who will play — and where — is a gray area. There are 18 players on a bloated roster that includes three walk-ons from New Mexico. From all indications, the biggest impact players among the new guys are power forward Rod Brown, guards Saquan Singleton and Jeremiah Francis, big man Valdir Manuel and redshirt freshman Bayron Matos.
Matos is perhaps the most familiar, most hyped name on the team. He joined the Lobos in January after graduating high school early. Weir considered playing him in the final two months of the season but Matos never got off the bench. He burned his redshirt year in the process.
The only certainty is Francis getting the nod as starter at point guard. The transfer from North Carolina is a 6-foot-1 sophomore who has slowly been coming out of his shell.
“Jeremiah just gets better every day,” Weir said. “He’s gaining confidence as he’s doing that, and we’re all gaining a lot of confidence in him. He’s speaking more, he’s talking more as these practices go on because I think even he’s even feeling his impact in and around the team.”
Weir said there have been no issues with chemistry. Since leaving Albuquerque for the Lubbock area three weeks ago because of New Mexico’s strict public health order on large gatherings, the players have been holed up in a hotel much like their football brethren had done for seven weeks in Las Vegas, Nev.
Manuel said the team has done well to put aside individual needs for the greater good of the program.
“We want to be able to make the NCAA Tournament, want to be able to win our conference and I think the team we got we can do that,” he said. “We got a bunch of dudes with something to prove.”
The Lobos will play Sunday’s game against Rice, use the Owls’ facility for weight training and practice Monday, then play NAIA Our Lady of the Lake on Tuesday night at Rice. They might also have an additional game at Rice on Thursday, then fly to Boise for the conference opener.
Literally hundreds of miles removed from New Mexico’s fishbowl, the Lobos say they’re ready to roll back the curtain for what promises to be the weirdest season in program history.
Like it or not, the traveling road show that is UNM hoops is finally back.