It won’t get any easier for Lobos down the stretch
If the early returns on the Lobo basketball season tell us anything, it’s pretty much what was expected about the 2017-18 season.
Devoid of much depth or height or experience or reliable shooting, The University of New Mexico is off to a 2-4 start and staring down the barrel of perhaps its toughest stretch of the entire schedule. Losers of four straight, the Lobos (2-4) return home to face Evansville as part of the annual Mountain West/Missouri Valley Challenge.
Ten teams from each conference face off every year, giving UNM a chance to meet a fellow mid-major every year. In the Purple Aces (5-1) they get zero reprieve from a brutal stretch of games that started with a Nov. 17 road loss at New Mexico State, continued over the Thanksgiving weekend with losses to TCU and Maryland, and includes future road trips to UTEP and Colorado, finally ending with a Dec. 16 home game against Arizona.
UNM head coach Paul Weir said he is frustrated by the early results that have been punctuated by poor shooting and getting dominated on the glass. Three of the team’s newest players, guards Antino Jackson and Troy Simons have struggled with consistency while returning veteran Dane Kuiper is mired in a prolonged shooting slump.
A 6-foot-7 guard, Kuiper is just 4-for-26 in the last five games after hitting five shots in the season opener against Northern New Mexico.
“It’s such a small sample size, I don’t want to jump the gun with anything,” Weir said. “I don’t want to make it more of an issue on things saying, ‘You’re not shooting well; let’s do this.’ ”
Kuiper is expected to get the start in Wednesday’s game while Simons and Jackson will continue to get their usual allotment of playing time. The pair flip-flopped starting roles over the weekend in Florida, but Simons has still had a hard time acclimating to Division I after averaging 26 points and shooting nearly 41 percent as a junior college star last year.
“We’re still trying to kind of figure out a lot of guys and what their production levels are going to be and some of them just seem off, particularly historically,” Weir said.
Simons hit 15 of 26 shots in UNM’s first two games but has gone 5-for-25 in the four games since. That includes his ejection at NMSU and sitting out the first 24-plus minutes for disciplinary reasons against Tennessee Tech.
Weir said it’s the classic signs of a junior college player needing time to adjust to the superior speed and athleticism of this level.
“The reality is, Troy has never had to compete against players of that caliber,” Weir said.
All told, the current season is shaping up to be a challenge in nearly every aspect. The potential is there, Weir said, but it needs to manifest itself soon.
“I don’t think we’ve even come close to what our potential may be as a unit,” he said.
That potential starts with not making mistakes on defense. With virtually no post presence, the Lobos have no margin for error at that end of the floor.
“But we’re also doing some poor things at that end of the floor,” he said. “We’re fouling at a pretty high rate, we’re sending teams to the free throw line quite a bit and our worst defensive statistic is our rebounding. We’re giving way too many second shots right now.”
LOBO NOTES
It’s time to take the show on the road. The UNM women’s basketball team is off to a 7-0 start and starting to receive votes in the national polls, but all seven wins have come in The Pit. That includes a three-game sweep of Wichita State, UC Irvine and Illinois in the recent Thanksgiving Tournament.
The Lobos get their first road tests this week with trips to UTEP and New Mexico State. They head to El Paso on Thursday night and will be in Las Cruces on Saturday morning at 11. They are looking for the season sweep against NMSU after beating the Aggies in The Pit, 86-75, on Nov. 18.