A LESSER LOSS
Lobos are at least competitive as they face UNLV
Losing is never fun, but at least it got a little more interesting Monday for the University of New Mexico men’s basketball team.
Losers of eight straight to start an unprecedented bad run to start conference play, the Lobos were refreshingly competitive in a 53-46 loss to UNLV in the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nev.
Now 4-8 overall and 0-fer in the Mountain West, UNM held the lead until the final nine minutes before crumbling under the weight of perhaps the worst offense they’ve played all season.
Over the final 17 minutes of Monday’s game, the Lobos were 3-for-22 from the field and committed nine turnovers.
“It was tough, man,” said center Valdir Manuel. “We’ve never been in this stage of the game — like, that close — this season. It was new for us. It was new for everybody.”
The Lobos led by as many as 10 points early on, getting a clear boost from a revamped starting five that had Saquan Singleton get the nod at point guard for the first time all sea
son. The 6-foot-6 junior responded with a team-high 11 points and a season-high six assists.
UNM coach Paul Weir said he felt Singleton gave 27 minutes of solid play. The other six minutes he was on the floor were lost in a haze of exhaustion as the junior college transfer remained in the game more than anyone on the team.
“I’ve said this for a while,” Weir said, “I don’t know what it is and I’ve never researched other coaches. When I have a good point guard I’m a pretty good coach, and when we don’t have one I don’t look very good as a coach.”
In those 27 minutes Weir said he got the best play from that position the team has had all season.
“I think he made some kind of fatigue plays, particularly in the second half,” Weir said. “We’ve got to find a way to get some better guard play to take the heat off him so that he can get us really good 26 or 27 [minutes] and we can put ourselves together a good 40.”
The early burst to start the night included a pair of quality low-post buckets from big man Bayron Matos, but the muscular 6-9 bruiser didn’t score another point or attempt another shot the rest of the way.
UNM carried a lead into halftime and was playing its most inspired defense of the season, cutting out the dangerous UNLV transition game that led the Rebels (4-6, 2-2) to a rout of the Lobos just two nights earlier.
The Rebels turned it over 15 times and shot 37 percent from the field. As it turned out, those numbers were better than UNM, whose 20 miscues came with a lower shooting percentage.
Things began to slip away in the second half when the Lobos made just one field goal over a 12-minute stretch starting at the 17-minute mark, a span punctuated by two airballs just 16 seconds apart on the same possession from Lobos guard Jeremiah Francis.
The Rebels climbed into a one-point lead as UNM’s offense continued to struggle, but a tip by Manuel tied the game at 42 in the final six minutes. That bucket kickstarted another dry spell in which the team’s only points came from the free throw line over the next fourplus minutes.
The Rebels didn’t exactly set the world on fire at their end, but they created enough offense down the stretch to put the game away. Guard Bryce Hamilton was the best player on the floor in the waning moments, scoring eight straight points for the Rebels to help them open their biggest lead of the night, 50-43 with 90 seconds remaining.
Manuel was the only other Lobo in double figures with 10 points. Makuach Maluach struggled to nine points on 3-for-12 shooting.
The Lobos head back to St. George, Utah, this week for a two-game series against San Jose State starting Thursday night.