I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

Even crazier, the red-shirt freshman that never played a minute of college basketball and wasn't even ready for the elite level of the NCAA was drafted 10th by the NBA. Both the draft and the Norton Report put way too much emphasis on where they stood in recruiting ratings, and star potential rather than actual production and development. It gets pretty silly at times.

[Wayne23]

Of course, IMO, this fairly closely approximates the stupidity of the real life NCAA selection committee and executives.

[CoachC]

I've always thought so too, Wayne, but the last two seasons in this association, the committee has been even dumber than the morons in charge in real life.

[CoachC]

In fact, in real life if a team with UNM's resume had been seeded 3rd by the committee, there might have been a revolution.

[PointGuard]

New Mexico seceding to become New New Mexico (or Newer Mexico)?

[CoachC]

something like that! 2/3 of the NCAA might join us!

[CoachC]

2021 Pre-season:

Nit vs Houston L 53-78
VANDERBILT W 77-55
CENTRAL MICHIGAN W 85-64
@ Missouri L 63-77
@ Seton Hall W 67-45
@ #17 Oklahoma St. L 72-80
@ #14 Gonzaga L 57-77
TEXAS A&M W 79-61
@ New Mexico St W 87-67
WAKE FOREST W 80-60
@ #10 Maryland L 66-74
@ #19 Indiana W 62-54
NORTH CAROLINA W 73-44

With 7 newcomers we, as expected, have had quite a few growing pains. Early in the season our defense was almost non-existent, and what success we had came from crashing the boards and scoring a lot of transition baskets despite horrible defense. It wasn't until our quality loss at Oklahoma St. that we finally played solid defense, and have basically done so ever since. Even in that 20 point loss at Gonzaga our defense was very good, we just didn't shoot a lick. Our defense has continued to get better and better since, culminating in the final game of the pre-season when we held the Tarheels to 27.5 shooting from the field. After the win at Seton Hall and the quality loss at Oklahoma St. apparently the press saw something and we surprisingly re-entered the polls and have remained in them ever since. We had began the season ranked an unrealistic 8th at that point.

Going into the conference season we are ranked 17th and 14th in the RPI despite a 8 -5 record. Apparently the polls at least take into account strength of schedule even if the committee completely ignores it unless it helps one of THEIR teams.

Air Force has bounced back behind their freshman sensation shooting guard Bernard Mader who has won Freshman of the Week in the MWC every week of the season thus far and our ranked #24 with an RPI just behind ours at 15.

San Diego is 10-3 against a rather weak schedule for an RPI of 93 behind defending conference player of the year and the nation's second leading scorer guard Tang Terrell who has won player of the week honors every week this year.

The rest of the conference looks rather weak at this point. We are picked to win the conference again this year, but the Falcons will have something to say about that, and the Aztecs will be dangerous to anyone that doesn't keep Terrell under control.

Our challenge in the conference season will be getting our offense to click as well as our defense, but we have made great strides as a team since the beginning of the year, and perhaps are deserving of our ranking. Now we need to prove it.

[CoachC]

THrough first half of conference season:

WYOMING W 88-57
@San Diege St. W 83-74
@#18 Air Force W 69-58
TCU W 61-47
@ Colorado St W 72-70
With Rocket Man Matt Houston limited to just 9 minutes in this one because of back soreness, we were stinking at both ends of the court, and not going after rebounds either. With 13:38 left in the game we were trailing by 17. After a loud timeout where I told them all I could beat them with a team made up of their baby sisters, a whole new team came out on the court. Garren, Petion, and Betts began cashing in on a barrage of 3s with Travann Ohl putting back the rare miss (and stepping out for a trey himself). WIth 7 minutes to go we were still trailing by 11, but we almost completely shut down their offense after that. With 19 seconds remaining, Ohl hit an easy shot from the low post for the lead, and blocked the shot at the other end of the court and corralled it to cap the improbable come-back. For the first time since I've been in Albuquerque, 3 point shooting is a weapon we have now. It's still not a strength, but it's no longer a glaring weakness either.
BOISE ST W 78-50
@UNLV W 75-58

We run the table for the first half of the season and have a 2 game lead over TCU and 3 game lead over Air Force and Wyoming. We are 15-5, ranked #9 and 2nd in RPI. Air Force is ranked #18 with an RPI of 11.

[PointGuard]

(Coach: Just watched New Mexico defeat San Diego St. in the Mountain West championship game. I was rooting for SD State just because they had played so well this year and it would have been good to see a new MWC champion, but New Mexico played well. Both teams will go to the Big Dance, so that's good. It will be interesting to see their seedings.)

[CoachC]

UNM is a quality program in real life, and the Mountain West has been a mid-major conference on the rise...it was certainly better than the Valley up and down this year, and the A10 as well. I'll be pulling for the Shockers and the Lobos both in the tournament, and hope that one of them has the chance to crush the Bluejays.