At 5-13, Lobos’ woes are both big and small

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of Geoff Grammer’s Emptying the Notebook column, an online-only offering following Lobo men’s basketball games at ABQJournal.com/sports.

There’s not much point in harping on the limitations of this season’s 5-13 New Mexico Lobos. The sample size has grown large enough that we know by now they are 1-13 in Mountain West play for a reason.

But one thing the Lobos have shown to actually have a statistical advantage, or at least not a disadvantage, has been with size and rebounding.

UNM is a big team that, due to simply not having many outside shooters, has often opted to play two bigs at a time in an era when most teams in the Mountain West and nationwide are going four guards or at least perimeter-oriented players and one big.

Wyoming, while not small, plays outside-in, shooting more 3s than any team in the league by a mile.

To combat that, the Lobos knew they couldn’t try to out-shoot the Cowboys from the perimeter. But at least on paper, they did have what appeared to be an advantage in big men that should have led to dominating the glass and the paint.

Of course, Wyoming knew the scouting report, too. On Tuesday, Cowboys coach Jeff Linder said the key vs. the Lobos was all about trying to keep them from killing them on the boards.

“Where New Mexico is gonna beat you — it’s not it’s not about tricky plays or whatnot,” Linder said. “It’s about when that shot goes up, you better be ready to go rebound and then you better be able to get back in transition.

“The game doesn’t start until that shot’s up.”

So, here’s what the Lobos — the team that should have been the better rebounding team in the series vs. Wyoming and should have had an edge, even if only a slight one, with their big men, got on the stat sheet in the two-games played:

REBOUNDING: UNM 76, Wyoming 75

OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING: Wyoming 23, UNM 22

SECOND-CHANCE POINTS: UNM 26, Wyoming 21

Sure, that plus-5 in the second chance points looks nice, but that’s the stat the Lobos had to dominate to win against a team that outscored UNM on 3s in the series 66-30.

As for the Lobos’ two big men — 6-foot-9 Bayron Matos and 6-10 Valdir Manuel?

BAYRON MATOS: 30 minutes, 8 points, 3 rebounds (none on offense), 3-of-5 shooting, 3 fouls drawn/3 fouls committed

VALDIR MANUEL: 67 minutes, 13 points, 6 rebounds (2 on offense), 6-of-16 shooting, 2 fouls drawne/3 fouls committed

So, the Lobos went from starting both bigs on Wednesday with the hopes of dominating that part of the two-game series to ending up with that duo combining for 21 points and nine rebounds in 97 minutes of action.

That won’t get it done. Still, the Lobos had a shot in each game — Wednesday’s 83-74 loss went overtime, and Friday’s 79-67 defeat was a 2-point game with under four minutes left to play.

Imagine if one of the few advantages most thought they at least had heading into the series would have held up.

Was that a press?

Since Paul Weir’s first season, the team has talked a lot about pressing. But since that first season, it’s mostly been just that. Talk.

The previous two seasons didn’t really have ideal pressing defense personnel. This year, the team said it had all the right parts, but still hasn’t really been a pressing team, other than for show.

Then came the second half on Friday. The press was amped up, and the Cowboys got sped up and flustered

— a huge factor in the Lobos’ furious comeback from down 27 to 67-65 late. So, why are we just seeing it now? “Probably just where we’re at, you know, living on the road and the weardown effect,” Weir said when I asked Friday. “I think mentally and physically, I just I don’t know if that was the right thing for us. I don’t know if it was sustainable from an injury prevention standpoint, from a physical health standpoint.

“As we’ve kind of looked at it, we haven’t really quite had the time we would have liked to do something like that. So in spurts, you know, we can. I think early in the year we tried it a little bit but you know, living on the road is draining and you’ve got to make some some adjustments to what you do basketball wise as well. I don’t want our guys coming up with injuries or doing something that isn’t sustainable over the course of the year.”

Number to know: 9

UNM attempted only nine 3-pointers on Friday making three.

No big deal, right? After all, if you can’t make ’em, you shouldn’t take ’em seems like a safe rule of thumb, especially for a Lobos team that doesn’t have a high-end outside shooter.

But analytics folks would tell you teams simply can’t win many games anymore if you aren’t mixing the long ball into the offense. It helps both from a mathematics (even this Aggie graduate can tell you 3 points is more than 2) and “spreading the floor” standpoint. If you’re shooting 3s, defense have to guard you farther away from the basket, which creates more space on the floor and more driving lanes to get to the basket.

But it all starts with at least taking some 3s.

In Weir’s first 103 games as UNM’s coach (the first three full seasons and first four games of this season), the Lobos never attempted fewer than 10 3s in a game.

Since then, UNM has done it three times:

DEC. 23: 1-of-9 in a loss at Boise State

JAN. 28: 1-of-9 in an overtime loss at Fresno State

FRIDAY: 3-of-9 in a loss to Wyoming In the past decade of Lobo basketball, there have been 16 games in which UNM attempted fewer than 10 3-pointers. Eleven of those games came in the Craig Neal era (nine in 2014-15 alone).

Makuach watch

What can you say about Makuach Maluach? The reaction I got to Friday’s feature article on the Lobo senior who was playing his “senior night” game 400 miles away from the Pit was an awful lot of sympathy for a likable guy putting on a classy showing amid a chaotic season.

Friday, Maluach scored a career-high 30 points and was the only Lobo to score in double figures. Then, as he has done admirably throughout the season, he was then asked to be the face and voice of the losing team and speak with media after the game.

Let’s take a look at the top three scoring games in Maluach’s Lobos career:

30 — Feb. 19, 2021 — vs. Wyoming (10-18 2FG, 1-1 3FG, 7-9 FT)

26 — Feb. 10, 2018 — at Air Force (4-7 2FG, 6-7 3FG, 0-0 FT)

25 — Jan. 21, 2021 — vs. San Jose State (8-9 2FG, 2-5 3FG, 3-3 FT)

With those 30 points scored on Friday, here’s where Maluach now stands on UNM’s all-time scoring list:

1. Charles Smith (1993-97) 1,993

20. Marvin Johnson (1976-1978) 1,246

21. Cameron Bairstow (2010-2014) 1,239

22. Maluach (2017-present) 1,230

23. Mark Walters (2002-2006) 1,200

24. Roman Martinez (2006-2010) 1,159

25. Charlie Thomas (1987-1989) 1,158

Another number to know: 27

So the Lobos fell short of what would have been a Mountain West record comeback on Friday. They trailed by 27 in the first half and had it down to a twopoint deficit with under four minutes to play, so it was close.

The record in the Mountain West? That was set just last month when Colorado State erased a 26-point fist half deficit at San Diego State on Jan. 2 and won the game 70-67.

And that game broke the previous record of a 25-point comeback by the Nevada Wolf Pack on Jan. 7, 2017, in the Pit against the Lobos. That game, which featured a pair of banked in 3-pointers by the Wolf Pack, ended up being a 105-104 overtime win for Nevada and also led me to rewrite my game story three times.

Up next…

The Lobos stay in Colorado Springs after Friday’s loss as the “home” team in Clune Arena and now switch benches for a two-game series against Air Force in Clune Arena on Monday and Wednesday. Monday’s game starts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday’s game starts at 4 p.m.

A number to know: 0.2283

The Lobos starting lineup on Friday scored a horrible 0.2283 points per possession in the 5 minutes, 6 seconds it was on the floor together. That wasn’t all at the beginning of the game, but throughout.

For those not as versed with the points per possession metric, 0.2283 PPP over the course of a 74-possession game like Friday’s was, would net a team 17 points. For the whole game.

That starting five was Saquan Singleton, Isaiah Marin, Maluach, Emmanuel Kuac and Matos.