Lobos find a reason to fight late in the season
Lobos in uncommon position of still having something to fight for this late in season
Meaningful games in February?
It’s sort of a new thing around The University of New Mexico’s south campus.
The men’s basketball team was just 6-17 in the calendar’s second month the three previous seasons. That includes a 2-11 mark in road games.
Amongst others, that was one of the many things head coach Paul Weir wanted to change in this, his first season with the Lobos. So far, so good.
With one game remaining in February, they have already clinched their first winning record (4-2) in the month since the 2013-14 team went 6-1 and ended its season with a Mountain West Conference championship and trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“When you lose a lot of games over the course of a career, you just learn how to win, how to close out games,” said UNM senior Sam Logwood. “You learn things that you can do different in those times.”
Namely, it’s playing with poise when the game is on the line. It’s a lesson the Lobos learned the hard way in narrow losses in the closing minutes against TCU, New Mexico State, Nevada and Boise State. It wasn’t until they held on in a Jan. 27 win at UNLV that the mental block was conquered.
UNM closes out the month Wednesday night at Colorado State. It’s a game that carries significant weight heading into the final four days of the regular season because a win would clinch a first-round bye for the Lobos in next week’s MWC Tournament and set up what would essentially be a playoff in the finale on Saturday against Fresno State in The Pit. The winner is poised to nail down the league’s No. 3 seed.
Weir said there was a moment in his team’s most recent game that
he had flashbacks to some of the earlier collapses, games where the emotions of the game got the best of his players.
The Lobos had just blown an 11-point lead to the Rebels and needed key stops and a big bucket in the final minute to pull out the win.
“I thought to myself, ‘Gosh, you’re going to look back on this and say, you know, this was a critical moment,’ ” Weir said. “But all we’ve talked about since the Boise game was poise and staying engaged, not letting the emotion of the game get to us whether we’re going up or going down. The guys stayed remarkably calm.”
UNM’s 10 wins in conference play equals their total each of the last two years. A win Wednesday would assure them of a third straight overall winning record in the regular season.
“We learned from the Boise State game, no question,” said junior guard Anthony Mathis. “It’s just so positive now, just what we need to do. No matter what, we believe; everybody in the huddle believes we’re going to get the win. That changes a lot.”
GAME NOTES
Fresno State picked up its 11th win on Monday night at Air Force in a makeup game from earlier in the season when the government shutdown forced the Academy to postpone all athletic events. The Bulldogs are 21-9 overall, making them one of three teams in the MWC with at least 20 victories. … This is the fourth straight year the Lobos have faced Fresno State in the final two weeks of the regular season. The Bulldogs have won all three. … CSU is on its third coach in less than a month. Head coach Larry Eustachy was suspended Feb. 10 after allegations of player abuse surfaced. His top assistant, Steve Barnes, was promoted to interim coach but he, too, was suspended after a player revolt at practice. Third-tier assistant Jase Herl is now in charge. The Rams have gone 1-3 since Eustachy’s exit. … This is UNM’s first trip to Fort Collins, Colo., since last year when Lobo assistant coaches Chris Harriman and Terrance Rencher argued with CSU player Emmanuel Omogbo outside the arena after the game. It came after a hard screen by the Lobos’ Joe Furstinger left the Rams’ J.D. Paige lying flat on the floor.