Lobos road trip off to a feisty beginning
You know you’re in a hostile environment when the flight attendant gets booed. That was the case Wednesday morning right around the time most folks in New Mexico were headed to work. Dispatched to provide coverage of the NCAA Tournament’s West Region in (scans notebook) not-so-west-Memphis, yours truly was on a plane headed from Albuquerque to Houston on a connecting flight to the Home of the Blues.
It meant rolling out of bed around 3:30 a.m., finding a spot in long-term parking and very nearly forgetting the laptop in the car, squeezing into two jam-packed flights where one had a faulty ventilation system and left everyone feeling like recently used sweatsocks.
A quarter of the West was sent to Memphis for the rounds of 64 and
32 this weekend. Among them is the University of New Mexico, the chic pick among many to reach at least the second around and even go as far as the Elite 8.
Even President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama have the Lobos knocking off Clemson on Friday to face Baylor in the next round. The Athletic and ESPN say the Lobos are the mostly likely upset winner in the first round.
CBS college hoops analyst Wally Szczerbiak has them going to the Elite 8, as does Instagram scout and insider Ryan Hammer, who has the Lobos falling a game short of the Final Four against North Carolina.
But how about that flight attendant? As they do, she jumped on the overhead speaker with her pre-landing instructions as the plane descended through the soup above Houston. She made the astute observation of, “It’s March Madness and I’ve noticed there are a lot of New Mexico fans on board.” Applause.
“I see lots of red out there.” More applause.
One guy in the back yelled, “Everyone’s a Lobo,” and the woman behind me did the, “Woof, woof, woof,” reply you hear dozens of times a game in The Pit. A few more claps and laughs.
“But I have to say,” the flight attendant interrupted.
Uh oh, here we go. Nothing good ever happens when a sentence begins with a but.
“As a San Diego State girl; go Aztecs.” You don’t hear a lot of booing that early in the morning, but there you have it. Few things get Lobo fans riled up like San Diego State — except for maybe New Mexico State or Steve Alford. If she’d mentioned Pistol Pete or Noodles’ boss, there may have been an in-flight incident.
Roughly a fourth of that plane was filled with Lobo fans, some of whom were dressed in varying layers of cherry and silver. A baseball cap here, a hoodie there. Nearly all of them jumped on the next flight from Houston to Memphis.
Word quickly spread that Thursday’s practice session in the Fed Ed Forum in
downtown Memphis was open to the public. You can thank a certain media member for that.
A woman in her favorite gray Lobos sweatshirt told me at baggage claim said it was time to turn Memphis’ NBA arena into The Pit East. Judging by the number of fans on the last leg, not to mention all the other flights that were nearly sold out as of Monday evening and the bus reserved for fans not able to secure a flight, it will be interesting to see if cherry red can drown out the (checks notes again) Tiger orange and regalia, which I’ve come to understand is a fancy word for purple.
The Lobos will be on the court for 40 minutes Thursday afternoon, before which they will have their mandatory open-mic media session where dozens of reporters — some of whom have covered every game and asked every conceivable question since October — will try to evoke the haymaker of NCAA Tournament responses like Bobby Knight’s “game face” in the 1992 West Regional in The Pit.
Waiting outside will be a healthy number of fans just itching for a chance to see their Lobos try to shake off the cobwebs and win a postseason game or two. Or maybe three.
After all, they didn’t travel halfway across the country and get needled by a flight attendant just to head home empty-handed.
Will Webber is the sports editor for The New Mexican and a weary traveler covering the Lobos this week in the NCAA Tournament. You can contact him at wwebber@sfnewmexican.com.