MISSED SHOTS
Lobos, suffering from ack of practice, set to Nevada again today
Major college basketball is hard enough on its own, but when players are making just one-third of their shots and they have zero confidence from 3-point range and the free throw line, it’s darn near impossible.
It also explains the horrendous start to conference play for the University of New Mexico men, whose three straight losses have seen the Lobos make just 19 percent of their tries from the outside and clang 20 missed free throws in Thursday’s New Year’s Eve loss to Nevada.
At the core of it is the play of point guard Jeremiah Francis, a celebrated transfer from North Carolina who landed on UNM’s doorstep with the promise of the next big thing in the backcourt. All he’s done since donning a cherry and silver jersey is put up alarmingly poor numbers that are a microcosm of all things wrong.
The 6-foot-1 sophomore has missed 18 of his 19 tries from 3-point range (5.6 percent), is 18-for-42 from the field (22.5 percent) and has taken just three free throw attempts in six games. What’s more, he has logged 135 minutes and dished just 12 assists with 10 turnovers and one offensive rebound.
The shooting nightmare isn’t unique to Francis.
Head coach Paul Weir has used his platform with the media to diagnose his team’s woes as a breakdown in the marriage between mental acuity, nerves and confidence. The acuity, he said, comes from repetition, which only comes through practice. Anyone who has followed the news cycle of Lobo hoops knows that a lack of practice is at the root of everything the team does.
The team lost a month of preparation due to the New Mexico public health order that limits the size of gathering during the pandemic. Since moving to Texas in late November to escape the state’s rules, finding practice court time has been a significant problem.
“We’ve got to find a way to get more shots in somehow, some way,” Weir said. “We’ve got to get creative to give them a little bit of a better opportunity, physically and then mentally just to get them to relax. These poor kids put so much pressure on themselves to try and be great and try and be the best they can be,
and I think it’s just too much sometimes.”
Speaking of confidence, Weir said he’s holding onto his hopes for Francis. Weir wants him to keep firing away as long as it’s not a step-back 3 from NBA range — something Francis has done far too often. Weir said Francis has been one of the team’s most consistent shooters in practice but needs to find the touch that allows him to translate it to games.
“His shot is good and the mechanics are where they should be,” Weir said. “The shots just aren’t going in during games.”
What the Lobos need is repetition, something that’s hard to come by when they are in a city five hours from their Albuquerque home and are spending more time isolating inside than in a gym honing their craft. The sample size from Thursday’s loss, Weir said, is simply too small to extrapolate the kind of information that would diagnose a problem too big to overcome.
Thing is, the numbers don’t lie.
NOTES
Saturday’s game against Nevada tips off at 8 p.m. and will be aired by CBS Sports Network. … Thursday’s game aired on FS1, and anyone watching noticed the scoreboard graphic kept posting the incorrect score. It happened several times in the first half as each team’s tally was changed multiple times. … Nevada missed its first 11 shots from 3-point range. It wasn’t until Desmond Cambridge connected at the 11:48 mark of the second half that the Pack finally got things going. … UNM big man Bayron Matos is struggling. He managed just one field goal, finishing with five points and eight rebounds with three first-half turnovers. … Makuach Maluach had a team-high 15 points but was 1-for-7 from the free throw line. Rod Brown had 14 points and 11 rebounds but missed six free throw attempts.