Lobos win nail-biter
JaQuan Lyle’s 31 points help UNM edge Boise State
The calendar said Dec. 4. The scoreboard, fans’ anxiety in Dreamstyle Arena - the Pit and dueling coach complaints about officiating after Wednesday night’s Mountain West Conference opener between the Boise State Broncos and UNM Lobos painted the picture of late-season league battle with plenty on the line.
In a game with 17 lead changes, including three in the final 62 seconds, a Justinian Jessup 3-point try in front of his own Boise State bench with 0.9 second left on the clock missed badly, sending the Lobos to an 80-78 win over the visiting Broncos in front of an intense announced Pit crowd of 10,301.
“It takes really good players who have a resolve about them that they’ve shown all year long,” UNM head coach Paul Weir said after the game when asked what it took to pull out the close win over a veteran Broncos team that primarily played five seniors and one fourthyear junior.
“I can honestly say we have not gotten into a timeout (late in a game) at UTEP, at New Mexico State, here (against) McNeese, where there’s ever been a bit of panic on their part . ... These guys they’re just confident. And it was just enough, obviously, to get the win tonight.”
Junior Makuach Maluach echoed his coach’s sentiment.
“Last year, some of the games we lost were close games and we couldn’t close them out,” said Maluach. “This year, we have a way older team. We’re more mature. We have guys that have played a lot of basketball, so we know what needs to be done.”
Wednesday, it was confidence, maturity, probably a little bit of good fortune, and another monster game from senior guard JaQuan Lyle that pushed the Lobos’ record to 10-2 on the season, 1-0 in MWC play, and 6-0 at home.
Lyle scored 31 points, dished out seven assists and drew seven fouls, leading to a much-improved over Sunday’s game 8-for-10 showing at the foul line. No matter the defense, Lyle seemed to be too much for the Broncos much of the game, posting up at times, hitting 3-of-7 3-pointers, and down the stretch often driving in the lane and either finishing or drawing a foul.
“Offensively, the only other player that was that fun to coach offensively was R.J. Barrett (on the 2017 gold medal winning Canadian U19 World Championship team),” Weir said of Lyle. “He’s an incredibly fun player to coach because he can do anything from anywhere.
He can play in the post. He can play mid-post, elbow, he’s got a perimeter game. He can use ball screens. He can play isolation, one-on-one. We just move him around in different ways based on who’s guarding him and what skill we can take advantage of at the time.”
But Lyle wasn’t the only one who put on an offensive show Wednesday. The Broncos (4-3, 0-1 MWC), as they’ve made a habit of doing in the Pit as long as head coach Leon Rice has coached there, had multiple players go off on the Lobos from the 3-point line. BSU hit 14-of-28 3-pointers, led by Jessup’s 6-of-10 for 24 points. Junior Derrick Alston added 20 points and six assists and Marcus Dickinson, who had hit five 3-pointers all season, sank four against UNM.
“They missed one when it counted,” Weir said of his team’s 3-point defense. “That’s all I know.”
UNM, which entered the game leading the nation in made free throws and attempted free throws, was 19-of-25 from the line Wednesday. It wasn’t a stat either coach seemed thrilled with, though for different reasons.
Weir thought his team should have been shooting more free throws.
“I thought they really let us play tonight, which was advantage Boise,” Weir said. “We need those foul calls. I thought down the stretch, we finally got a whistle. We finally got to the free throw line. And that kind of helped balance things for us.”
Rice had a different take to a night of his team being whistled for 20 fouls.
“There’s not much more you can do (than how the Bronco players were defending),” Rice said. “When you’re in front of the guy with two feet on the ground and he runs into you, there’s a lot of contact. And I guess some of them were fouls. Apparently all of them were.”
UNM outscored Boise State in the paint 48-20, on fast-break points 20-5, and off turnovers 16-5, while committing just six turnovers and dishing out 19 assists. But the Broncos hit a season-high 14 3-pointers to keep the game close on a night both teams showed plenty of offensive firepower, each shooting 50.9% from the floor.