Weir: Horrible Lobo effort is ‘all me’
San Jose State routs UNM in rematch
The Lobos came home to Albuquerque on Saturday night.
But they seemed to have already checked out of their temporary digs in St. George, Utah, by halftime — or sooner — of Saturday’s embarrassing loss to San Jose State inside Burns Arena on the campus of Dixie State University.
Playing without the Mountain West’s leading scorer, the Spartans secured their first Division I victory of the season with their best offensive game of the season, scoring 50 second-half points, in an 83-71 win over a rather lifeless UNM squad.
“Today’s on me,” Lobos coach Paul Weir said after regularly reminding people of the mental challenges his team has faced this season while being relocated out of state to practice and play — part of which is now remedied by their being allowed again to practice in Albuquerque.
Weir on Thursday even revealed he had been asking the league for changes in his team’s schedule to give his players some time off — requests shot down by either his bosses, the Mountain West Conference or both.
Saturday, the lack of focus and energy from his team came against a Spartans team that for more than a month has also been relocated out of its home state to practice and play.
“It’s not on the league. It’s not anything else. I told the guys after
the game this one’s on me,” Weir reiterated. “All I’ve asked for since we started this journey was effort, and for us ... to play with just the overall effort and energy that we did is more of a reflection of me, and just this one’s on me. I did not do a good job, obviously, preparing our team mentally to come out and play with the type of energy that we needed. I made some decisions sub-wise or rosterwise that didn’t pay off either, and I think today’s all me.”
The Lobos fall to 5-9, 1-9 in Mountain West play. SJSU, which lost by 16 points two days prior to the Lobos, is now 3-11, 1-9 and has a win against the Lobos in each of the past three seasons. UNM is the only league member to lose three consecutive seasons to the Spartans, who have gone 18-123 in MWC regular-season and tournament games since SJSU joined the league in 2013-14.
UNM squandered a career game from
Valdir Manuel, who had 25 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots. Point guard Saquan Singleton had 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting to go with a career-best 11 assists.
UNM led 35-33 at halftime and actually had one of its better scoring games of the season — assisting on 26 of 31 field goals and scoring on 1.06 points per possession (they average 0.95, which ranks 304th in the country in Division I games).
But there were also 15 turnovers that led to an 18-5 points-off-turnover advantage for SJSU, which also scored 20 points on fast breaks, often set up by lazy Lobo passes setting up easy layups or transition 3-pointers at the other end. Two days after a 3-for-20 showing from 3-point range, the Spartans hit 10-of-23.
“I haven’t seen anything like this out of this team this year,” Weir said when asked about the second half, when the Lobos were outscored 50-36 and the Spartans shot 59%.
“It’s obviously, like I said, this is a reflection more of me than them because that’s all I’ve really asked for was effort. I haven’t asked for the free throws to go in. I haven’t asked for the 3-point shots to go in. But I have asked for effort, and we did not have that today. And as much as I tried to coax it out of them with encouragement or anger or whatever it might be, to see if we could get them going, it just wasn’t there today. A lot of shallow, shallow faces and blank stares.”
Spartan senior Richard Washington, who averaged a league-best 22.2 points per game entering the series, was injured in Thursday’s Lobos win, did not play Saturday.
Instead, the Spartans found brilliance in balance with five players reaching double figures — four scoring 16 points and Omari Moore adding 14 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals.
SJSU had 18 points off 15 UNM turnovers. The Lobos led 35-33 at halftime before trailing by as many as 16 in the second half.