New Mexico men rout the San Jose State Spartans
UNM gets 15 points from Delaney in win
It wasn’t a work of art. In fact, it often was hard to watch with there being more intrigue and concern about whether a fight was going to break out in a rather chippy second half as opposed to any actual doubt about the outcome.
In the end, Deshawn Delaney scored 15 points and the UNM Lobos used another stifling defensive performance to shut down San Jose State 67-41 on Saturday night to remain one of four teams within one game of first place in the Mountain West standings.
“I thought that was a very average performance from my team,” Lobos coach Craig Neal said. “I thought they came out the first four minutes and played real good, (but) we still had a lot of mental breakdowns offensively. We still had a lot of mental breakdowns defensively. I’m a little concerned about that — we have to correct to get to where we want to get to. You can’t play to your opponent.”
The Lobos (14-7, 6-3 Mountain West) pounced early on the overmatched Spartans, leading by 12-0 after five minutes and 21-4 after 10 minutes in the opening half before settling in to their locker room at halftime with a 31-15 lead. The 15 points and 21.4 percent shooting in the opening half were both season lows for the Lobos, who held their opponent under 70 points for the 21st time in 21 games this
season.
But it wasn’t exactly unexpected to beat the Spartans (2-19, 0-9), a team with just six scholarship players and two walk-ons in the Pit on Saturday, leading Neal to say the goal entering the game was to improve.
Saturday night, he had mixed emotions about whether his team had done that. The Lobos were up comfortably throughout, but never seemed to deliver the knockout punch to the Spartans, who in turn seemed to be trying to deliver a few of their own with multiple hard fouls and clearly not giving in to their much better opponent.
After one scrum in the first half after a Ryan Singer foul (and technical) on Lobo junior Jordan Goodman, UNM senior Hugh Greenwood was called for a technical foul himself.
“It did get chippy,” Greenwood said. “We probably would have had 10 more assists if they didn’t foul us going to the rim. Credit to them for not giving up and playing hard for 40. We had some wide open layups and they fouled us for sure. I got a tech for just sticking up for my teammates. The guy (Singer), I thought it was over with and he came back for more (after referees separated several players after the foul on Goodman). I just told him to have a look up at the scoreboard. Obviously that classified as taunting and I got a tech.”
The second half brought with it numerous hard fouls from the Spartans and at one point Neal and SJSU coach Dave Wojcik were barking at each other from opposing benches.
Wojcik, who has lost players to injury, transfers and discipline this season, said he told his team he was happy they kept fighting the entire game.
Neal would not comment on the officiating, but of SJSU said: “They kept playing hard. They kept fouling us.”
UNM shot 46.2 percent in the game and hit 7-of-17 (41.2 percent) of its 3-point shots. But the 12-of-22 (54.5 percent) clip at the free throw line and some stretches of sloppy offense in the second half brought out some uneasy moments from the announced Pit crowd of 14,358. Keeping focus in a blowout, Grenwood admitted, was tough at times.
“It is tricky, but at the same time the fans haven’t gone anywhere,” said Greenwood, who had eight points and a team-high seven rebounds in 28 minutes. “We owe it to them to play hard for 40 minutes. That’s what Lobo basketball is all about. It’s about 40 minutes of effort. ... We had some lapses, but at the end of the day we were pretty good for 40.”
Freshman Sam Logwood (10 points) joined Delaney as the only Lobos to score in double figures. SJSU got 15 points from Rashad Muhammad and 14 from Jaleel Williams, who each hit three 3-pointers. SJSU was 8-of-32 from beyond the arc (25.0 percent) and was outrebounded 44-24 in the game.
BLACK BAR: Greenwood wore a black bar on the left shoulder of this uniform (the Lobos wore silver home uniforms Saturday instead of their usual home whites) in honor of the passing of a friend’s mother to colon cancer back home in Australia. Peter Hooley, a basketball player at the University of Albany whom Greenwood has played with in the past growing up in Australia, tweeted on Friday night that his mother had passed away.
“We’re in the same boat, coming over to the States with our moms being diagnosed with cancer. … That was in honor of her. Cancer affects everyone, and it was just an absolute shocker. I didn’t know what to do. It was just a symbol for her.”