I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[Wayne23]

I avoid this kind of game if at all possible. The good job you did at your former school comes back to haunt you at your present school.

[CoachC]

I avoid this kind of game if at all possible. The good job you did at your former school comes back to haunt you at your present school.

Yeah, if I hadn't forgotten to approve the schedule it would have never been on it

[CoachC]

After a disappointingly poor performance last time out, and a short break for the holidays, we now have to try to get it together for another road game in, where else, New York. We should open up an affiliated campus here.

The Lions are not totally without talent and have wins over Vanderbilt, Virginia, and a road win over Hawaii in their last outing. We need to play worlds better than our last time out. Apparently it's "take an Ivy League team to work week" for the Mountain West because SD St. plays host to Cornell tonight, and Colorado St. hosts Yale.

I wasn't sure how we would be able to play much worse than we did in our last game, but our guys have taken upon themselves to prove that we can. We shot horribly, played lousy defense, missed freethrows, and didn't take care of the ball. Then end result is that we are getting our butts handed to us at half-time, trailing 44-27. It is not a fun locker room for our players.

We come out playing a lot better in the 2nd half and by the 2nd media time out have shaved the lead down to 2. At the final media time out we are still trying to play catch up down 4. Our shooting continues to be horrid but we've played better defense and have gone to the boards.

In the end, the half-time deficit was too large for our anemic shooting to overcome despite some outstanding rebounding in the second half (41-34,17-5 for the game). We got to the line 40 times but our 65% freethrow shooting didn't help us either.

Wilson had his worse game of the season by far. In 17 minutes, he didn't take a shot, missed his only freethrow, had no assists, no rebounds, and 2 turnovers.

Martin had 7 points on 3/14 shooting but did have 7 rebounds.

our post players were very good in this one at least
Madic had 17 pts, 5 rebs
Taylor 14 pts 9 rebs

Off the bench Inyo had 7 pts, 5 rebs; Tatum 2 pts, but 9 rebs, and Durham had 13 pts in 16 minutes. Thompson helped over come the bad game by Wilson with 4 pts, 5 asts, 1 stl and just one turnover in 19 minutes.

We didn't get much from any of the 3s in this game which also hurt us. Willis was the best of the bunch with 2 pts, 5 rebs, and a steal in 22 minutes.

Our second disappointing loss in a row.

Final:
UNM 69 Columbia 75

[CoachC]

Our last chance to turn things around before the start of conference play against a pretty good Wolverines team (RPI 49) out of the Great West. They haven't played a world beater schedule but they do have a win over St. Louis and a road win at VMI. They also beat Columbia at home as our only common opponent.

Stetson has finally recovered from wrist injury and it sure would be nice for him to come back with some confidence and give us something off the bench. The Wolverines play primarily 3-2 zone which could cause us problems if someone isnt hitting consistently from the perimeter. They play very deliberately offensively with balanced scoring.

We play a bit better tonight, but not good enough, especially at the defensive end where we allow them to shoot 54% from the field.

At the half we trail by 1 as they hit a 3 at the buzzer, 35-34.

The defense is much better in the 2nd half, and although it wasn't one of our prettiest games of the season, we do get the win.

We turned them over 19 times on 13 steals which help offset another ho hum night offensively

Tim Wilson rebounded well from his last outing with 2 pts, 7 asts, 4 rebs, 1 stl and just 2 TO in 30 minutes.

Martin had 10 points, 3 asts, 4 rebs
Guy chipped in 10
Madic had 8 pts, 8 rebs and 4 stls
Taylor led 5 players in double figures with 13 pts, 6 rebounds

off the bench Jackson had 10 pts, 4 rebs, and Durham chipped in 11. Stetson once again took just 1 shot in 16 minutes, but he and Tatum did have 3 steals apiece. Thompson played just 7 minutes in this one, but played well.

we end the losing streak

Final:
UNM 66 Utah Valley 61

[CoachC]

Jan 1: As we head into conference play, our RPI remains at 68. Wyoming is the only other conference team in the top 100 at 50. We are second nationally in both steals(10.2) and assists(17.2). We're 5th nationally in forced turnovers at 18.3. In the conference we are 1st in total rebounds(hard to believe with the way the season started), and second in scoring. Individually Taylor is 2nd in the league in rebounding, 4th in shooting percentage. Wilson is second in assists. Martin is 9th in scoring, 2nd in FT%

[Wayne23]

Glad to see you turn it around, Coach.

[CoachC]

The Horny Toads enter conference play with an RPI of 130. They were blown out a couple of times on the road by ranked teams, but their best win has been at home vs UTEP. We'll be facing another 3-2 zone and we need to attack it better than we did against Columbia. The students are gone so this will be a rather smallish crowd for our opener. We need to give those that are here a reason to make some noise. We've not been doing that very well lately.

We struggle struggle struggle against the zone shooting just 20.5% for the half.. only their 13 turnovers and a 10-0 advantage on the offensive boards keep us in the game. At the half we trail 24-22.

Ugly, Ugly game won by defense. We shot 28.6% for the game, but held them to 29.1. Turning them over 21 times on 12 steals along with a 17-11 advantage in offensive rebounds made the difference. The crowd tried to get involved in the game, but when the ball keeps clanking off the rim over and over again it's hard to get much momentum going. The turnover differential gave us a 20-8 advantage on fast break points though, and from a fan's perspective that was about the only interesting part of the game.

Wilson was scoreless but had 4 asts, 1 stl and zero turnovers in 25 minutes, and in a game where nothing was going in the basket, I suppose that's not such a bad line.

Martin led us with 13 points, 2 asts, 4 rebs and 2 stls.

Guy added 8 pts, 3 rebs, and a stl.

Mad dog was tenacious in this one, I'll give him that. He wound up with 6 points, 2 asts, 11 rebs, and 2 stls

Taylor had 10 pts, 6 rebs.

Our only contributions off the bench came from the front line.. the guards gave us nothing.

Jackson had 4 points, 7 rebs, and a blk, Tatum 4 pts, 2 rebs, and 2 stls, Willis 2 pts, 2 rebs, and 3 stls, and that was pretty much it.

We win ugly

Final:
UNM 49 TCU 44

[PointGuard]

My team typically shoots poorly against zones...they fire away from outside with little success.

Glad your defense was better than TCU's.

[CoachC]

Thx, PG. That is one thing this team is really lacking, perimeter shooting, especially from the 3. Hopefully that will improve next season, but probably not til the season after that.

[CoachC]

The Aztecs come into the game with an RPI of 305. All of their wins have been at home, however where they are 5-2, the best of those wins coming against Va. Tech. We'd be sadly mistaken to assume they'll just roll over and play dead for us. Offensively they try to go inside/outside with their 2 guard Reese, and their Center Church. Defensively, well they haven't played much defense, so hopefully we'll be able to take advantage of that.

The only thing we do well at either end of the court in the first half is get to the offensive boards. Unfortunately that's not enough and we trail at the half 33-27. We especially had problems with their bigger guards.. a problem we've seen before, and for which we've not found a solution.

We were able to cut it to 4, but no closer, too many turnovers kept us from getting enough momentum to catch them. We played better in the 2nd half but 16 turnovers for us is way too many, and most of them were of the sloppy unforced variety.

Wilson had 8 pts, 4 asts, 2 rebs but an unconscionable and hard to explain 7 turnovers in 28 minutes.
Martin had 10 pts, 7 rebs, 2 stls, but totally out of his league trying to guard Reese.
Larry Guy gave us nothing
Madic had an off game with just 6 pts on 3 of 9 shooting and only 3 rebs.
Taylor was a little better with 8 pts, 6 rebs, but we needed more.

Off the bench Inyo was terrific with a team high 19 points, 5 rebs, 2 stls and a block. Stetson didn't find his offense with just 4 points on 2 of 8 shooting,3 asts, 2 rebs and a steal in 21 minutes, BUT he was the ONLY one that could guard Reese. When Stetson was in the game he totally handcuffed him, and when he sit, Reese just killed us no matter who we put on him. He had 25 points for the game, and probably all but 3 or 4 of them with Stetson on the bench. Against bigger guards, we are probably going to just have to play Nathan and hope he finds his offensive touch again. Our troubles this season started when he lost his confidence in his shot, and probably will continue unless he finds it again. The only other guy off the bench tonight to give us anything was Conley who had 6 pts, and 1 ast, no turnovers in 9 minutes.

A disappointing loss, especially since road wins in this conference are going to be very hard to come by.

Final:
UNM 61 SD St. 70