Lobo hoops
UNM men’s team completes schedule for the coming season
It’s no secret. If a bignamed team wanted to play in the Pit, Paul Weir would have loved to have them.
Instead, the Lobo men’s basketball coach on Thursday after his team’s 2019-20 schedule was revealed tried, not unlike most non-power conference programs, to make the best case he could for the slate of home games coming this season to Dreamstyle Arena.
Other than the annual home-and-home with New Mexico State, which will likely be the highest rated team to play in Albuquerque in the non-conference portion of the coming season (UNM is likely the same for the Aggies’ non-conference schedule, too), there aren’t any big name programs coming to town this season.
With most power-conference schools now playing almost exclusively home- and neutral-court games in the non-conference in November and December, Weir on Thursday pitched two primary selling points of this season’s schedule to Lobo fans.
First, it has the most regular season home games (17) of any Lobo schedule since the 30-win 2009-10 season when the Lobos went 16-1 in the Pit.
Second, the way the schedule should play out for the computer rankings that college basketball is now so reliant on, it will likely be one of the better schedules for UNM in five seasons and, as it usually is in the Mountain West, will again be one of the tougher league schedules.
“On paper, quantitatively anyway, it’s the most challenging schedule since the 2013-14 season when you look at the opportunities we have to play top-100 teams and that Quadrant 1 area,” said Weir. “We have a lot of great opportunities on the schedule.”
He’s not wrong, though the schedule will likely end up with a healthy dose of good, albeit not household name types of teams.
NMSU, for example, gives the Lobos two games against a team some project to finish in the top 50 of both the KenPom.com rankings and the NCAA’s NET rankings (the Aggies were 53rd and 46th, respectively, in those rankings to end last season). Grand Canyon has been a consistent top 150 team for several years and starts a home-andhome series.
In the Nov. 25-26 Legend’s Classic in Brooklyn, the Lobos play Auburn (11 KenPom, 13 NET), which was a Final Four team this past season and could play in Day 2 a Wisconsin team that was also top 20 in both rankings.
In the 18-game Mountain West schedule, defending league champion Utah State should be highly ranked and, in their only game with the Lobos, finish the regular season in the Pit on Feb. 29.
San Diego State and Nevada might also have high rankings and play UNM four times, including the Feb. 18 return to the Pit of former Lobo coaches Steve Alford and Craig Neal, now the head coach and associate head coach of the Wolf Pack.
Nevertheless, there is no Arizona or Texas Tech or even Colorado coming to town, something the Lobos and Weir hope will change in the future.
“You’re balancing a lot of things, particularly when you’re the coach of the Lobos,” Weir said, acknowledging he would love to find a way to get such regional rival team back in Albuquerque. “You have an amazing fan base, and thinking about them is just as important sometimes as just thinking about your own team and what’s good for it. Balancing that is a juggling act.”
NEW MEXICO CLASSIC: There likely won’t be a New Mexico Classic in college hoops’ opening weekend this season as there is a competing Lobo football game that weekend with Air Force on Nov. 9.
In recent years, the state’s Division II schools and one from Colorado have played in a four-team, two-day event in the Pit.
UNM opens the season Nov. 6 against Eastern New Mexico, it’s lone non-DI opponent of the season.
SCRIMMAGES: The Lobos will not play an exhibition, instead opting for two closed-door scrimmages. The NCAA only allows a combination of two scrimmages and/or exhibitions.
Weir is not allowed to say who the scrimmages are against.
HOWL: There won’t be a Lobo Howl this season, but the Cherry & Silver scrimmage is Oct. 12 in the Pit.
“The Howl in its existence was very entertainment oriented, which was great,” Weir said. “The Cherry and Silver game is more game-oriented, which I think can be more beneficial to the competitiveness of our team, and hopefully a good blend of both worlds.”