I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

Jan 15: We move up to #10 in both polls and are now #4 in RPI. Despite the loss to us Air Force moves up to #16 and 25 in RPI. Surprising San Diego St. still has an RPI of 23. UNLV still in the top 100 at 86. We are 4-2 against teams currently ranked in the top 25. we are 5-2 against the top 50 in RPI (the losses to Michigan and top ranked Arizona) with at least 3 more games remaining against top 50 opponents (probably 4 or more depending on who we draw in the Bracket Buster and our conference tourney) so our resume is looking pretty good.



Martin Ray is conference Frosh of the week for 3rd straight week and 4th overall. He also wins Player of the Week for first time and very well deserved.

[JMD]

The situation is really looking up for you, Coach.

[PointGuard]

Nice win against Air Force...your team is looking good, but there's some good competition coming up in your conference.

[CoachC]

Yep, PG, and we've not been very consistent lately.

[CoachC]

Let's see if we can put together a good game on the road. The Rebels have had quality wins over Wash. St. #18 Georgetown, and a road win at Depaul. In conference play they blew out a good San Diego St. game in their last home game. Student's are back and they dislike us here very much, not only because we are the team to beat, but because they still feel animosity towards us for using the Amoeba Zone.

Conley has earned the start at the point in this one.

We did a lousy job on the defensive boards in the first half and were outrebounded (16-22,5-10) and that must get better in the 2nd half. The rebounding differential is the primary reason we trail by one at the half 29-30. To make matters worse, Angeli picked up his 3rd foul before halftime.

Our rebounding was MUCH better in the 2nd half and it winds up pretty much a push (35-33,11-13). Our ballhanding wasn't very good (17 to) but we turned them over 21 times. ALthough we shot well enough against their 1-2-2 zone (48%) the game did highlight our lack of perimeter shooting (just 1 of 4 beyond the arc), perhaps our biggest weakness. Still we hung tough, played strong defense and walk out of here with a twelve point victory.

Inyo led us with 16 pts, but only 3 rebs in 23 minutes.
Martin (11)and Durham(10) each hit double figures, and Martin played some excellent defense again with 2 asts, 4 rebs, 5 stls, and a block and his all around play netted him player of the game honors.
Ray fell just short of another double double but had 9 pts, 11 rebs, 1 stl, and 2 blocks in 28 minutes.
Angeli was held to just 18 minutes because of foul trouble but still made it to double figures with 11 points, 4 asts, 2 rebs, and 2 stls.

Vernon (3 asts,5 rebs, 3stls and a block) and Tatum (2 asts, 6 rebs, 2 stls in 14 minutes) provided valuable minutes off the bench. With the foul trouble to Angeli, Vernon played some significant minutes at the 3 for the first time this year and was quite comfortable at the defensive end, although he was lost a bit against the zone, offensively which was understandable.

Still waiting for one of our point guards to step up and lead us, but it's not happening. None of them played horribly, but no one distiguished themselves either. Wilson's funk continues and I'm at a loss to explain it.

Very happy to get out of here tonight with a road win however. This is not going to be an easy place for anyone to play.

Final: UNM 67 UNLV 55

[CoachC]

Nice to have the students back. The Horny Toads come into our building tied for last place with the Cowboys and an RPI of 296. You start looking past a conference opponent though of any caliber and you can be in trouble, and I remind our guys of that. They'll be showing us 3-2 zone. We'll start the same 5 as in the last.

We struggled a lot against their zone for the first 15 minutes before finally warming up a little. But at halftime we lead by just 4 31-27. We need to get out better on transition in the 2nd half and open up the lead. THe longer we let the Frogs hang around, the more disaster looms.

And disaster hits.... the officiating stank, the worse officiated game all season, but we lost because we stunk. Never really solving their zone, and playing porous defense, we could neither get stops down the stretch, nor score consistently at our end and could hit absolutely nothing in the final 1:30 when we had to keep putting them at the line. A long and loud locker room after the game, to be followed by a couple of hellacious days in practice. I don't want these guys to forget this embarassing loss at home.

We shot just 37.5 % from the field allowing a bad shooting team to shoot 46.5 against us.

The only bright spot for us was Martin, who once again played a very good game and led us with 15 pts, 5 rebs, 1 stl, and a block
Inyo was the only other Lobo in double figures with 11, but fouled out after just 15 minutes.
Ray had 8 pts, 8 rebs, 1 stl, and 3 blocks, but still didn't play very good defense tonight.

Johnson was decent off the bench with 6 pts, 3 asts, 6 rebs, 2 stls, and Stetson gave us some energy with 3 stls in 8 minutes.

Once again none of our point guards showed up. It may be time to give Pat Bullock a chance to start, although he's been no great shakes in practice either. I'd move Martin to the point again, but it disrupts his offensive game so much, and although Durham gives us offense off the bench at the 2, his defense hasn't been very good lately.

I'm stumped and angry.

Disgusting Final: UNM 61 TCU 68

[CoachC]

Jan 20: Air Force upset last night too, on the road, by Boise St. so we remain 1 game in first, despite our self-inflicted injury.

[CoachC]

Jan 22: we manage to stay ranked at #10, but fall to #11 in the coach's poll. I expected worse and we deserved worse. Our RPI falls to 7.

Air Force drops to #18,#19.

[CoachC]

We lost here a year ago, and this is a far better Aztec team than that one. The Aztecs still have an RPI of 29, and would dearly love this win tonight to greatly improve their post-season resume. If we don't play many times better than we did in our last outing, they will get it.

Out of patience with our true point guards, Martin will start tonight at the point with Stetson at the 2. Not the ideal situation at all, but at the moment, I"m out of options.

We don't rebound very well again in the first half, but we didn't shoot all that badly and played some great defense to 35-23 halftime lead.

We rebound much better in the 2nd half, shoot 49% from the field while holding them to 37%. WHile 15 TOs are still too many for us, we turn them over 21 times. In fact the only reason the game was as close as the 21 point final was our mediocre freethrow shooting in this one(21-34)

We were led by the two freshman
Ray 18 pts, 2 asts, 7 rebs, 4 stls, and 3 blocks in a solid performance at both ends of the court.
Angeli added 16 pts, 5 rebs, 2 stls.
Inyo had 9 pts, 4 rebs
Stetson had 7 pts, 4 rebs in 17 minutes

Tatum (8 pts, 4 rebs, 2 stls in 19 minutes), DUrham (7 pts), and WIllis(4 rebs in 11 minutes) gave solid efforts off the bench.

Thompson decided to have a not too terrible game off the bench at the point(8 pts, 4 asts, in 17 minutes) and will get the start in the next game to try to be the next point guard to disappoint us. Martin as was predictable had his offensive game entirely disrupted playing the point (scoreless in 16 minutes) and we can't afford that kind of hit to our offense normally.

We can play better than this, despite the decisive final score, but we'll take the nice road win against a top 50 team.

Final: UNM 77 SD St. 56

[CoachC]

Jan 24: Conley nursing a sore leg sustained in practice, although I'm not sure that that explains him throwing the ball over someone's head twice in 4 minutes last night. He'll be day to day, and probably will sit out the next one against Wyoming.