I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

Feb 7: The Aztecs won on the road at Boise St. and move into sole possession of 2nd a game in front of Air Force and UNLV.

[JMD]

Clutch effort, coach! Looking forward to what happens in the postseason.

[CoachC]

Me too. I need this team to start playing consistently and they are doing better now than in the first half of the conference season. If Wilson can return to form and stay there we'll be in good shape. This team is only as good as what production we get from the point.

[CoachC]

With an RPI of 108 the Rebels come in thinking UPSET to keep their dwindling postseason hopes alive (although with the conference tournament on their home court again, no one is discounting them in the tourney).

We just need to take care of business. Our last game on the road at Air Force we finally got back to playing Lobo basketball. Wilson returns to the starting lineup tonight, and hopefully it will be the last time we have to juggle things at the point. This team needs Wilson's senior leadership. He knows he's had an up and down year this season, and it's time for him to finish in a big way. We'll be facing their tough 1-2-2 zone again, but we just need to take care of business and start getting our fans ramped up for the post season. A near capacity crowd will be filling The Pit tonight. Let's give them something to rave about.

We let them get position over and over at both ends of the court and our lack of rebounding enthusiasm finds us trailing by 4 at the half 32-36. OUr guard play and the play from our 5s have been good, but we're not getting much from our forwards. Somebody needs to step up.

Everyone leaves the Pit dumbfounded, including myself. We've been leading the league in rebounding all season, and are one of the top 5 rebounding teams in the nation, and we lost this game by...you guessed it...not rebounding. Our lack of outside shooting really showed too, especially in the 2nd half against their zone.

Martin Ray was a man again, and just gets better and better and better. 21 pts, 8 rebs, 2 stls and a block in 28 minutes. Inyo was adequate as well with 5 pts, 6 rebs, 1 block in 26 minutes.

For once, our point guards were blameless. Wilson had another great game with 7 pts, 9 asts, and 2 stls in 27 minutes and Conley backed him up with 3 asts, 1 stl and just one turnover in 14 minutes.

No one other than Ray and Jackson went after boards at all. Angeli has seemed lost since conference play began, and we got absolutely nothing from Vernon Johnson and John Willis.... NOTHING. Durham, Martin, and Stetson showed effort on the offensive end, but their lack of outside shooting kept them from being that big of a factor, and none of them were scrambling for loose balls or getting out on their shooters. Larry Guy may get some minutes as he at least showed energy with his 2 pts and 2 rebs in 4 minutes. Tatum was just Ok tonight.

We had good play from our points, and from our centers, and nothing much from anyone else. A inexcusable home loss. I guess the only bright spot is that the big upset on the road should give a big boost to the Rebels RPI.


Embarrassing Final: UNM 60 UNLV 73

[CoachC]

Feb 12: Amazingly after our embarrassing home loss to UNLV we stay at #7 in both polls. Our RPI falls to #7. Despite a decisive road win this week, Air Force finally drops out of the top 25 and their RPI inexplicably falls to 53. Collegeinsider.com still has them as at least a 9 seed if it comes to that, however. We'll see. SD ST. was walloped by last place Wyoming on the road and their RPI is still a lofty #27 and are projected to be at least an at large 10 or 11 seed. Go figure. Not surprisingly, UNLV jumps 41 spots in the RPI to #67 and are well on the radar now for postseason play somewhere.

Martin Ray is MWC frosh of the week for the 6th time and 3rd week running. Paul Hines of Air Force is player of the week yet again. I don't think there should be much doubt about the 3 major player awards in the conference the end of the season..if Martin doesn't also get conference Defensive player of the year I'll force someone to eat my hat.

[CoachC]

Both of our conference losses have come at home, one of them to the Horned Frogs in our worst game of the year. We played ridiculously bad defense, and shot the ball poorly. We looking more and more like a one and done team in the dance again this year, and I've let the players know it.

Stetson will start in this one in place of Angeli while he tries to retrieve his head from his butt.

after starting out playing more loser basketball and finding ourselves down by 12 with about 7 minutes to go in the half we finally got it in gear and pull in front at halftime with a narrow 34=33 lead.

After the game, I let our guys know that no matter what the polls say, we are NOT a top ten team, or even a top 25 team. We are behind where we were a year ago.

Our defense wasn't that bad in this one, but our point guards once again played like grade school kids, and everyone waited around for Ray to grab the loose balls for the most part. Basically at the moment we are a one freshman phenom team with a lot of experienced players playing far below their capabilities. We get swept by a mediocre team and lose our second in a row, and i'm out of answers.

Ray of course was his usual effective self with a team high 14 pts, 10 rebs and 2 blocks. Inyo added 11 pts, and six rebounds

Angeli responded well to coming off the bench with 9 pts, 6 rebs, 1 stl, and a block. but we need more. When most of our scoring against a zone comes from the blocks and on putbacks, our postseason has no future. Last year, Wilson would penetrate those zones and dish and punish them for an occasional three. This year he just gives up.

Headed for another one and done

Final: UNM 59 TCU 68

[CoachC]

Senior night for Wilson, Durham, Martin and Willis. If ever there was a time to show some senior leadership, this would be it. I've done all I can with this team. It's up to them now to get angry about losing and not being allergic to winning. The Aztecs come into this final conference game with an RPI of 27 and will be more than motivated to take the game if we hand it to them. Only thing special i dd after our last loss was to put the 4 seniors in a room alone to watch tapes of the last 4 games...twice each...and then let them sort out what their problem was while the rest of the team was on the floor practicing.

I'm not really sure what conclusions the 4 seniors came to in their private viewing sessions, and I told them I didn't want to know. But they must have seen something. All four of them came out tonight highly vocal both on and off the floor, played well, and as followers tend to do they went where the leaders led them. We storm to a 54-28 lead with our best 20 minutes of basketball since... well I honestly can't remember. Our communication at both ends of the floor was flawless.

A terrific performance. It was nice to see us finish the conference season with some swagger. A few too many turnovers late when we emptied the bench, but that's to be expected.

We shoot an amazing 62% from the field for the game, had terrific body language, and our communication was excellent. Anyone watching this game would have a hard time figuring out how we lost the last 2.

Wilson was limited to 19 mins with fould trouble but had 4 pts, 6 asts, 2 rebs, 1 stl and just 1 turnover. More importantly he took charge on the floor and remained vocal while on the bench.

Martin had perhaps his best game of the season on senior night, and was incredible pacing us in the first half and keeping the pedal down in the 2nd. He wound up the night with 20 pts, 4 rebs, 2 stls.

Angelli with senior leadership backing him up returned to his early season form to lead us with a career high 25 pts from everywhere on the floor along with 5 rebs and a steal.

Vernon johnson got into double digits with 10 pts, 4 rebs.

Ray had 10 pts, 4 rebs, and 5 blocks

Inyo completed our double digit scoring with 11 pts, 2 rebs, 2 stls and a block.

Durham had a good senior night as well with 7 pts, 3 rebs and a stl in 15 minutes off the bench.

It was nice to have THIS team back! It was fun to coach.


Final; UNM 93 SD St. 72

[CoachC]

feb 18: we came off our slump a little to late for the rankings and fall to 9th and 10th, and 9th in rpi. Air Force moves up one spot to 23rd. The Aztecs remain solidly in the mix with a 27 rpi, and Air Force has an RPI of 41. Bracket Buster Sunday could mean a lot for both of them.

Jon Angelli wins frosh of the week for the 4th time but the first since early December.

[CoachC]

Can we pick up where we left off in our last and finish our regular season on a high note? Despite their record the Lions have an RPI of 71 and have played a tough schedule with some nice wins including a road victory of conference opponent and mutual foe #24 Gonzaga. We must find a way to contain the nation's leading scorere, their shooting guard Corey Abney who is averaging 26.7/g.

Offensively we were terrific in the first half shooting 56.7% from the field. Defensively we did a lousy job containing Abney who torched us for 24 points in the first half. We need to close out on him better in the 2nd half, and hit the boards a little harder as well. At the half we lead 45-41

Our team really took our points of emphasis to heart at halftime. We went much harder to the offensive boards, and we handcuffed Abney to 3 points in the 2nd half and 29 for the game. We were able to steadily pull away.

Wilson had an outstanding floor game with 4 points, 12 asts and just 2 TOs in 27 minutes.

Durham had his shot going and added 18 points and 2 stls, while playing smothering defense on Abney in the 2nd half.

Angelli seems to have gotten over that freshman hump and was terrific again with 21 pts, but just 2 rebs.

What can you say about Martin Ray? I'm out of superlatives for the mega-talented freshman. He led us with 22 points, 13 rebs, 3 stls, and a block and played 30 minutes.

Willis (3 pts, 5 rebs), Stetson (5 pts, 3 rebs in 12 minutes), and Thompson (4 asts, just 1 to in 12 mins) gave quality minutes off the bench.

A great way to finish the regular season, and hopefully we've finally worked out some of the kinks headed into postseason play.

Final: UNM 80 Loyala Marymount 60

[CoachC]

Feb 25: Surprisingly we drop to #10 in the polls this week, while Air Force off of their bracket buster win over St. Mary's hangs on at #23, and #24 and get their RPI up to 35. The Aztecs lost their home game to #20 Gonzaga, but hold steady with a #27 RPI.