I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

The second time I've faced my alma mater in DI and it still feels weird. Unlike our victory over the Aggies in Boiling Springs a couple of years ago, however, my former coach and mentor has since retired. He's on hand tonight though and he and I had a nice lunch together reminiscing and talking basketball. He promises to check in with me after seeing our team in person tonight to give me his input. This is the annual bragging rights game for these two teams, so the Aggies are not going to be cowed by the crowd...many of their players have been here before and there are plenty of fans from Las Cruces in attendance as well. Our biggest crowd of the year so far.. still not capacity, but close to 16,000....it's going to be LOUD.

The Aggies like to go inside/outside on offense and have a good rebounding front line so our guys are going to have to keep after the boards the way they have the last several games. Other than a home 20 point loss to #15 Arizona they've not played much of a schedule, but they do have 3 of their 4 wins on the road, so we can't simply rely on our crowd to win this one for us like we did in the BYU game. Fortunately, we are back at full strength again tonight, for one of the few times this season (knock on wood). After some deliberation, we've decided to start with a 3 guard offense tonight, inserting Durham at the 2 and trying Martin out at the 3, giving Stetson an opportunity to come off the bench.

We dominate in every aspect of the game in the first half while storming to a 20 point lead at intermission. I struggle at half time trying to find something to harp on, but the only thing i can find is that they outscored us 4-3 on 2nd chance points. All I can really tell them at halftime is to give me more of the same!

They never pull closer than 13 in the 2nd half and we stayed in control the entire game. We turn the ball over just 5 times the entire game for a +11 turnover differential with 8 steals. We didn't rebound quite as well in the second half and they wind up with a little better numbers in that dept in the end 37-36, 11-14.

Wilson had another good game running the offense with 9 pts, 4 asts, 5 rebs, and just 2 turnovers in 27 minutes.

Durham added 8 points in his first start of the season, but we still would rather see him come off the bench.

Martin suprisingly adapted well to the 3 spot offensively with 15 pts, 4 rebs, but had a difficult time guarding the bigger guys at the other end.

Inyo was terrific matching Martin for a team high 15 points, along with 5 rebs, 3 stls, and 2 blks

Taylor was great as well with 11 pts, 9 rebs, 2 asts, and a blk

the bench in this one wasn't quite as productive as we are used to but Mad had 6 pts, 3 rebs, Thompson looked a lot more comfortable tonight in his 13 minutes as Wilson's sole backup at the point with 4 pts, 2 asts and just 1 TO, and Kareem Williams had a very nice bounceback game with 5 pts, 4 rebs and a steal in 12 minutes. Stetson played 12 minutes without taking a shot, and may need to see a shrink. Fortunately he's not taking it to the other end of the floor and continues to play good defense, but I have no idea why he suddenly is afraid to shoot the ball. We may have to run some private sessions with him to get to the bottom of it.

Final:

UNM 76 NM St. 60

[CoachC]

Dec 15: Air Force lost their 5th straight road game, this time by just 3 at top-ranked Duke 52-49. To go into that snake pit and lose by just 3 says something. No one can say that Air Force was afraid to schedule tough games on the road this season, and even though the quality losses continue to mount up and keep their RPI down, they are most definitely going to be road warrior nasty beasties once conference play begins and still have to be considered the favorite to win the conference in my opinion. Meanwhile, Wyoming continued their nice pre-conference run with a blowout of the Miami Hurricane at home 86-63.

Coach called after the game as promised and told me that although it was still clear our guys haven't gotten our system down yet, it was equally clear that they believed in it, believed in themselves, and believed in me. He is predicting great things for us in the not so distant future. I appreciated the encouragement.

[Wayne23]

"Coach called"? Coach which? Coach who? You're the coach!

[CoachC]

My mentor, my former coach at NM St, now retired after I kicked his ass at Boiling Springs.

[Wayne23]

Ah! Got it.

[CoachC]

At home against a good St. Joe's team with an rpi of 71. They'll be looking for their shooting guard Flores who is averaging over 20 per game.

they have a 2 point loss on the road to 22nd ranked GA. Tech and a HUGE upset win over top-ranked Duke at home. They've also beaten Nebraska and Depaul on a neutral court so they are very dangerous and have been scoring almost 76 ppg

Although we didn't shoot real well in the first half, we played solid defense and went to the boards hard again.

At the half we lead 41-30

Strong post play from Taylor and Madic in this one enabled us to finish this one out in good shape. We out-rebound them 38-31,14-8 and turned them over 17 times with 7 steals.

Wilson had 6 points, 4 asts, 4 rebs and a steal
Durham had 13 pts, 5 rebs
Martin had 7 points, 3 rebs and a stl, but his defense at the 3 left a lot to be desired, so I have to declare that experiment a bust.
Inyo had an off game with just 2 points and 3 rebs.
Taylor was a monster inside with a career high 25 points, to go with 10 rebs

Off the bench Stetson struggled again, taking just 2 shots in 9 minutes and his only score was on a breakaway layup off of a Guy steal.
Madic was terrific 15 points, 6 rebs, and they had no answer for us in the posts.
Thompson continues to improve with 2 pts, 5 asts, 2 rebs, and 2 stls in 19 minutes at the point.
Tatum and Guy both played well too, and Guy may be the man to start at the 3 for us going forward.

The crowd wasn't as loud in this one tonight, but we didn't need them as much as we stayed in control of the game once we had the lead. A nice win over a quality basketball team.

Final:
UNM 84 St. Joe's 69

[CoachC]

Dec 17: Stetson sprained his wrist making his one breakaway layup last night and will be day to day for the next couple of weeks. I'll have him spend practices watching game films with the coaching staff while he's hurt, and hopefully he'll figure something out.

[CoachC]

Dec. 18: With 2 good wins our RPI rises to 21. Amazingly to me Taylor isn't player of the week, because he certainly deserved it.

[CoachC]

The Pioneers are clearly not a good basketball team, but it's no time for us to get careless and overlook someone. Their leading scorer is their small forward where we've been having problems. Larry Guy will get the start tonight at the 3 with Martin moving back to the 2 and Durham providing offense off the bench. Madic will also move into the starting line-up at the 4 in place of Inyo.

We got off to a very slow start tonight, with too many turnovers and poor shooting before we finally settled in. We take a 6 point lead into the intermission 39-33. I urge our players at the half to not let these guys hang around.

In the 2nd half we got down to business and ran away with it.

Wilson had another fine floor game with 5 pts, 11 asts, 4 rebs, 2 sts, and just 3 TO in 27 minutes.
Back at the two Martin had a field day with 23 pts on 10/11 shooting for a season high.
Larry Guy didn't put up much stats wise in his 14 minutes but played solid defense.
Mad had 16 points 6 rebs
Taylor added 10 pts, but amazingly had just 1 rebound for the game.

Off the bench Jackson had 6 pts, 4 rebs, 2 stls, Durham had a tough shooting night with just 5 pts on 2/11 shooting. Tatum was solid again with 8 pts 4 rebs in 15 minutes, and John Willis was the big man off the bench tonight with 6 pts, 4 asts, 4 rebs, and 4 stls in 22 minutes, and he and Larry Guy played stifling defense against their leading scorer, Flint, holding him to just 4 points on 2/12 shooting for the game.

Final:
UNM 83 Sacred Heart 57

[CoachC]

I'm not sure why I allowed the A.D. to get us a game with the Bulldogs, as there is little to gain from it. A loss at home will be embarrassing and a thumping of them, other than sticking it to my former bosses, would just embarrass my former players whom I still care about.

The Bulldogs have been getting very balanced scoring with 6 guys averaging between 7.8 and 11.6 led by Garvin Sanders. Had a chance to speak with their new coach Corey Holmes for a bit at the game luncheon and told him he's been doing a very good job with the largely bare cabinet I left him. He didnt say it, and I didn't want to discourage him, but I got the impression that he was already a bit disenchanted with the administration at G-W. A quick learner that guy. Billy Harris one of the freshman I recruited while I was there has been doing a fine job for them at the 4 off the bench, and they are getting good performances out of the Juco transfer at the point, a guy had been pursuing when I left, and that they were eventually able to sign. Bobby White has been playing at the 2 for them, something we tried off and on last season with mixed results, but he's been not doing badly either. Our biggest concern will be Godzilla whom I had a nice reunion with at the luncheon. I wished him a great conference season. They have a couple of nice wins under their belts, a season opening win over Mississippi St. and a road win over Vandy.

We'll use the same starting line-up as last game.

Bobby White is a house a fire for them in the first half as our smaller guards struggled to handle him. We eventually switched Guy and Willis off of Sanders and on to Bobby. They are also killing us on the boards behind Godzilla and Harris. Not a good half for us and we trail at half-time 43-38. I knew I didn't want to play these guys. We have a very grouchy half-time yell in the locker room.

Absolutely our worst game of the year. Bobby White torched us for 28 points and we had no answer for him. I gave him a big pat on the back after the game. I always knew he had it in him but there was no excuse for us letting him hit wide open shots all night long. Godzilla had the better of Taylor in this one too and had 8 points, 10 rebs. As a team we rebounded better in the 2nd half, but not well enough to win. We were never able to get the crowd into the game. Everytime we'd start to get a little momentum we'd either throw the ball away or let White hit another 3 to quiet the crowd back down.

Wilson played just 15 minutes because of early foul trouble and had 2 points, 4 asts.
Martin had 9 points 2 rebs, 3 stls, but lacked awareness defensively.
Guy had a nice game offensively with 13 points, but had just 2 rebs. He did do about as good a job of anyone at getting in White's jersey.
Madic had just 5 pts in this one, but 10 rebs and 3 steals
Taylor had just 7 points 3 rebounds in his 2nd straight sub-par game.

Not much help off the bench in this one either, other than Inyo Jackson who wasn't intimidated by O'Connor and almost single-handedly was responsible for fouling the big guy out after it was too late to matter. Jackson led us with 16 pts,3 asts, 6 rebs, and a block. Both our back up point guards were turnover prone, although Conley did have 6 pts, 3 asts, in his 17 minutes.

An ugly disappointing, embarrassing loss at home.

Final:
UNM 69 G-W 78