I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

Jan 7: Durham seemed to have a touch of the flu last night limiting him to 10 ineffectual minutes. After a trip to the hospital it was determined he had food poisoning. From what we aren't sure.
The Falcons were the first team in the conference to get a road win last night over TCU giving them a big leg up on the rest of the conference. They'll be mighty tough to beat at home.

[Wayne23]

It's a process, Coach, but that's part of what makes it fun.

[CoachC]

Yep, and it's just a fact of life that our guard corps this year is tiny. Wilson and Thompson are both 5'10 and all the rest of our guards other than Stetson are 6'2. Stetson (6'5) wasn't available when 6'6 Bobby White was taking us apart against G-W, and by the time I put Stetson on the Aztecs 6'5 guard he'd already done his damage.

[CoachC]

The Rebels enter play with an RPI of 262. The Rebels are a very deliberate team that will pass the ball about 100 times each possession out of their motion offense looking for an open shot. Defensively they play 1-2-2 zone, once again creating a difficult offensive environment for us, given our last 2 times encountering zone defense. Shooting better and getting into their passing lanes will be keys for us tonight. Stetson will return to the starting lineup tonight at the 3.

Our shooting against the zone is a little better tonight, which is not to say good, and not good enough to avoid an 8 point deficit at halftime. Our defense wasn't bad , but we didn't rebound or handle the ball well enough to overcome our anemic shooting. At the half we trail 26-34. We seem to be waiting for the crowd to ignite us rather than the other way around.

We shoot better in the 2nd half and play better defensively. It was no coincidence that Stetson FINALLY found his shot again in the 2nd half and gave us a huge spark that has been missing for quite some time. That also in turn opened up things for Martin who also had a good offensive 2nd half. We take care of the ball in the 2nd half as well and wind up turning them over 21 times on 10 steals for a +11 differential and a 16 to 4 difference in fast break points. The crowd finally had a reason to get in the game.

Wilson had 10 pts, 8 asts, 2 rebs. He did turn the ball over 5 times, but 4 of those were in the 1st half.
Martin had 13 pts, 2 asts
Stetson led us with 16 pts, 13 in the 2nd half, 3 asts, 5 rebs, and a steal. Welcome back to the land of the living, Nathan! We've missed you!
Mad Dog played good defense but got lost once again offensively against the zone. He finished with 4 pts, 3 rebs, and a stl.
Taylor had 4 pts, 8 rebs, and a block

The bench contributions once again all came from the front line.

Inyo had 8 pts, 8 rebs, 3 stls; Tatum had 4 rebs, and a stl in 12 minutes, and Guy played well off the bench spelling Stetson at the 3 with 8 pts, 3 rebs, 3 stls. Thompson gave us a few good minutes near the end of the game, but otherwise it was a case once again of getting little or nothing from our back up guards. With Stetson playing worlds better, now it appears we gotta get Durham fixed. it's always something.

In any event, solid play in the 2nd half sees us through.

Final:
UNM 65 UNLV 56

[CoachC]

Our best chance to pick up a conference win on the road. The Broncos(RPI 336) are a deliberate team offensively with few weapons, do not rebound well, and play little defense. We need to play the way we can and get this road win. They do have a home win over Mississippi St, but their only other wins have been in their season opener at home over Southern Utah, and in conference at home to UNLV. They did play a few good teams on the road pre-conference, but it doesn't change the fact that this is not a very good basketball team. One possible problem for us is that they start big at the 2 (6'5) and the 3 (6'8), and we've already seen the problems it makes for us when the perimeter guys out-size us.

We don't play great in the first half but we play just well enough at both ends to take a 4 point lead into intermission. 1st half turnovers hurt us again. Hopefully we'll follow our usual trend of taking much better care of the ball in the 2nd half. We got to the line 17 times in the first half, which is something I hope will continue. Their post players are in a bit of foul trouble, and our big guys need to keep taking it to them.

At the half we lead 32-28.

Strong rebounding and better ball-handling allow us to slowly pull away in the 2nd half. We outscore them 36-20 in the paint, 14-3 on 2nd chance points, and 21 to 2 on fast break points.

Wilson had 2 pts, 7 asts, 5 rebs and just 1 turnover in 25 minutes in a fine game at the point.

Despite early foul trouble Martin provided 13 pts, 3 rebs in just 17 minutes.

Stetson had another strong game at both ends and seems to have gotten his head back on straight. He had 13 pts, 3 asts, 2 rebs and 4 steals.

Mad Dog played terrific post defense as did all our bigs, but continues to be off his game offensively going just 2 for 7 for 5 pts, and just 3 rebs, and a steal

Taylor had a very rare bad shooting night going just 5/9 for 5 pts, 6 rebs, and a steal

Off the bench, Inyo was terrific again leading us with a double double 14 pts, 11 rebs. The rest of the bench played well tonight too. Thompson had 6 pts, 4 asts, Tatum 6 pts, 3 rebs, Durham 5 pts, Guy had just 4 pts, 1 reb, and a steal, but played lock down defense on their 3 Van Hook while in the game for his 17 minutes, allowing Stetson to lock down their 2 when Martin wasn't in the game. Kareem Williams did a couple of good things too in 5 minutes.

It was a good game for us and a needed win on the road.

Final:

UNM 73 Boise St. 60

[CoachC]

Jan 14: We are now in a 1st place tie with the Falcons as the only other team with a conference road win. Winning games on the road is probably going to decide the conference race.

[CoachC]

Jan 15: Our RPI is back up to 49 leading the Mountain West. Wyoming has fallen off to 69, and not surprisingly the Falcons have surged up to 74 with a bullet. Gardner-Webb is a surprising 43 in the RPI, in part thanks to us handing them a game on the road, but I have to give Holmes a lot of credit for what he's managed to do with so little. Larry Williams gave me a call today telling me the Asheville papers are sorta dragging my name through the mud right now, but says he suspects I'll get the last laugh.

[CoachC]

Back to back home games, and we need to take care of business. I did say the conference may well be decided by road wins, but protecting the home court is going to be equally important.

The Rams are 2-6 on the road, but one of those road wins was the conferences best win pre-conference, a victory over #7 Texas A&M proving that they aren't to be taken for granted.

Offensively they look to get the ball inside to their big 6-10 268 lb Center DeShawn Mueller so our usual post defense is a must.

Our defense is lousy in the first half and we trail by one at intermission, 37-36. Mueller has been a handful but we've not done a very good job getting out on everyone else.

Not a great game for us on the half court defensively, although we were much much better down the stretch. We dominated in the 2nd half by doing the things that we do the best. A +11 turnover differential with 11 steals, a 13-5 advantage in offensive rebounds (32-26 overall) for 11-4 on 2nd chance scoring, and despite Mueller's best efforts, we outscore them in the paint 30-26. We also had some deep solid play off the bench.

Wilson had 9 pts, 4 asts, 5 rebs, and just 2 to in 24 minutes.

Martin didn't have his best offensive game, but still put up good all around numbers with 7 pts, 4 asts, and 6 rebs.

Stetson added 13

Mad Dog returned to form with a team high 15 pts, along with 7 rebs.

Taylor allowed Mueller to intimidate him in the paint and had just 4 pts, 3 rebs. Taylor seems to back down from the bigger centers, much as he did with Godzilla earlier in the season, even though he is the superior athlete. We are going to have to go through some game films with him.

off the bench, Inyo had another fine game 8 pts, 5 rebs and was much more willing to challenge Mueller at both ends of the court. Tatum had 2 asts, 3 rebs, 2 stls in just 12 minutes, Durham looked much more like himself with 9 pts, 2 stls in 15 minutes, Larry Guy had a terrific night even better than his numbers which were pretty good...10 pts, 4 asts, 2 rebs, 3 stls in 22 minutes. As he becomes more comfortable playing the 3 though, his defense gets better and better and between he and Stetson we are finally getting some good play from the 3 spot. Conley had 3 asts in 8 minutes, and last but not least Kareem Williams had 2 pts, a stl and 2 rebs in just 5 minutes.

A good win. Not sure why we keep having slow starts, but at least we are getting strong finishes.

Final:
UNM 77 Col. St 59

[CoachC]

Jan 18: Williams banged up his shoulder a little bit last night. It's not serious but he'll be day to day for the next week. Wyoming escaped SD St. at home last night in overtime. Air Force and our team are still the only teams with a road win in conference play and remain tied for 1st one game ahead of the Cowboys, our next opponent.

[CoachC]

A must win against a very good opponent before heading on the road for 2. The Cowboys lead the league in scoring (9th nationally) at 74.6. They shoot the ball very well, but aren't an especially good rebounding team. We need to play some defense and hit the boards hard. It would be nice to get off to a quick start for once and get the crowd into the game early. Close to 16000 are in attendance tonight, our biggest of the season. Inyo will start tonight in place of Taylor.

Our offense and defense are both spotty in the first half, but we did hammer the boards(20-13,11-3) and turned them over 12 times for a 37-33 lead at the half.

We followed our usual trend of playing better in the 2nd half and extended the lead as the Cowboys never seriously challenged us. We continued to dominate them on the boards (37-29,16-8), turned them over 22 times on 10 steals and outscored them 42-18 in the paint. We needed to get out better on their 3 point shooters however as they went 10-21 beyond the arc.

Wilson had 5 pts, 3 asts, 3 rebounds
Martin was terrific with a season high 24 pts on 11/7 shooting, along with 3 rebs and 2 stls.
Stetson had an ordinary night, but was steady with 4 pts, 3 asts, 3 stls.
Madic had 13 pts, 6 rebs, and a steal
Inyo had a very good night with 6 pts, 10 rebs, 2 stls and a block.

Off the bench, Taylor came out of his funk and had a solid game with 9 pts, 8 rebs, 1 stl, and one block. Durham had 10 pts, and Conley had 5 pts, 4 asts, 1 reb and no turnovers in 11 minutes.

Final:
UNM 80 Wyomng 68