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The Lobo basketball team during a game last week in Rice. The Lobos will now head back to Texas, where they’ve relocated this season to practice and play. (Courtesy photo)
Here are some notes, quotes, stats, videos, analysis, odds & ends and whatever else I managed to empty out of the old notebook after Wednesday night’s 89-52 Lobos loss to the Boise State Broncos in Boise, Idaho:
Get back on that bus
At the top of my game story Wednesday night, I used a small piece of a minute-long Paul Weir answer to a question about where his team goes from here figuratively and literally.
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Junior Saquan Singleton, shown in action last Thursday vs. LeTourneau, is one of the players the Lobos will lean on to lead the team in picking up more transition baskets. (Kevin Richardson/LeTourneau University)
Even before UNM’s sometimes-excruciating 77-53 loss Monday night at Boise State – the largest conference-opening loss for the Lobos since 1993 at Utah in the old Western Athletic Conference – it was apparent that scoring would be difficult this season.
The roster lacks outside shooting, which, in an oversimplified way, allows opposing defenses – Monday that meant a Boise State defense that is likely one of the best UNM will play all season – to sag into the paint, clogging up driving and passing lanes and making scoring near the rim very hard for new UNM big men Bayron Matos and Valdir Manuel.
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UNM Lobo Makuach Maluach drives while being defended by Boise State’s Emmanuel Akot during Monday’s game in Boise, Idaho. (Courtesy Boise State Athletics)
Here are some extra notes, quotes, tweets, analysis, videos and whatever other odds & ends I could empty out of the old notebook after the UNM Lobos’ 77-53 road loss at Boise State on Monday night in Boise, Idaho:
Maluach watch
I’m not going make featuring Makuach Maluach a regular thing in this ETN column, though I did last week when he was chasing 1,000 points and now, after Monday’s blowout loss for the Lobos, he was really the only player worthy of breaking down a little more after the game.
BOISE, Idaho The University of New Mexico men’s basketball team dropped its first Mountain West contest of the season on Monday night by a score of 77-53 against Boise State, the team picked in the league’s preseason poll to finish second in the MW. The contest marks the first of a two-game series played across three days.
The Lobos (3-1, 0-1 MW), who have now played four games over a span of nine days, will get a second shot at the Broncos (5-1, 1-0 MW) on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. MT on CBS Sports Network.
Overall, UNM was outshot 57.7-33.9 percent despite an even 33.3 percent (5-15) shooting from behind the arc for both teams. The Lobos, who entered the contest averaging 58.7 rebounds per game, were also outrebounded 35-29 on the night.
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Lobos senior wing Makuach Maluach on Thursday became the 35th player to score 1,000 points in a UNM uniform. (Photo courtesy Kevin Richardson/LeTourneau University)
Here are a few notes, quotes, stats, videos and other odds & ends I emptied out of the old notebook after the Lobos’ 90-58 win over Division III LeTourneau on Thursday in Houston:
Welcome to the club
Sitting on 999 points entering Thursday’s game, Lobo senior Makuach Maluach didn’t waste much time joining that 1,000 point club once the ball was tipped.
Appropriate for the theme of the game, the 6-foot-5 wing hit the milestone bucket after first grabbing an offensive rebound (UNM had 32 of them) on the game’s opening possession leading to an easy layup for points 1,000 and 1,0001 to become the 35th player to score 1,000 points in a Lobos jersey.