On Wednesday, the Lobos took down Air Force in an impressive fashion to complete their two-game sweep of the worst teams in the conference. The road gets quite a bit bumpier now, though, as the Lobos will now enter what is probably the toughest four-game stretch on their schedule. That stretch starts with a game up in Idaho, as the Lobos face Boise State tomorrow afternoon with sole possession of second place in the conference up for grabs. Although a loss won’t be incredibly damaging, this game provides an opportunity to prove that the gains the team has made this past week are real and that the Lobos should be thought of as contenders for the conference title.
Air Force Game Recap
Like the San Jose State game before this one, the Lobos faced an inferior opponent that they were expected to handle with relative ease. The fact that they did so again and it feels like a bit of a relief might be both indicative of how parts of this season has gone and indicative of where the team is headed.
It took a little bit for the Lobos to get going, once again falling behind early while showing a tendency to turn the ball over. This time they didn’t dig themselves much of a hole, thankfully, only getting as far down as 4 with 13 minutes to go in the half. From that point on, they stepped on the gas, going on a 15-2 run over the next five minutes to take control of the game, then later hitting threes in five straight possessions to open the lead up to 17. It certainly feels like this team has the weapons to go on that type of stretch, but it’s still a surprise to see it happen. When the dust settled at halftime, they were holding on to a 45-30 lead and looked as confident as ever that they were going to finish this game off.
The second half felt like more of the same. Air Force clawed their way back to cut the Lobos’ lead down to 9 with 11:32 remaining in the game, but then the Lobos ripped off a 22-2 run over the next 8 minutes that pushed the lead up to 29 and put the game completely out of reach. It got to the point where the question wasn’t when the walk-ons were going to get into the game, but when they were going to check in. All three of them were in when the final buzzer sounded with the Lobos finishing with a convincing 84-55 win. They shot 63% from the field, including 52.9% from three, while holding Air Force to 27.6% and 37% respectively. That’s just complete domination.
Players of the Game
- Tim Williams (38 points on the season): Air Force made it a goal to shut the Lobos down in the post but by the looks of it, Tim didn’t get the memo. He scored 16 points on 6-8 shooting from the field and 4-5 shooting from the free throw line and picked up 10 rebounds as well to record his 5th double-double on the season. For good measure, he also picked up 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals. Did I mention that he was sick the night before and almost didn’t play? Tim is having a great season and has solidified himself as one of the best big men in the conference.
- Anthony Mathis (3 points on the season): In my season preview, I made a comment about how I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthony had a game where he just lights up another team. Well, here it is. He scored 16 points in his 15 minutes on 4-5 shooting, including 3-4 from three and 5-5 from the charity stripe. In their matchup-zone defense, Air Force seemed primarily concerned with Elijah, Tim, and Cullen (for good reason), which meant that Anthony found himself with some space fairly regularly, which he used to more than double his previous career-high in points. I’ve thought that he’s looked fairly confidant on the court the whole season, the only problem was that the shots just weren’t falling (he was only shooting 21.7% from three in the non-conference games). Now that they seem to be, as he’s 4-6 from three in conference play, he could become a real weapon off the bench.
- Elijah Brown (37 points on the season): Elijah had another really efficient shooting night “off the bench”, scoring 17 points on 5-8 shooting (4-6 from three), and his performance is only really docked by his 5 turnovers. It’s fun watching him against teams like this or SJSU because you can really see how talented he is, as he seems like he can do whatever he wants on the court. I know that he’s going to be back in the starting lineup against Boise, but part of me will miss seeing him come off the bench with fresh legs and just dominate other teams’ second units. Plus, it gives us fun and misleading stats, like his 33 points off the bench against SJSU, which is a UNM record, or his 50 points in his last two games off the bench, which is probably a UNM record as well.
A Little About Boise State
Boise State, helmed by sixth-year head coach Leon Rice, is in the middle of a program renaissance. After making the NCAA Tournament just once in the previous 18 seasons, they’ve now been to the Big Dance two of the past three years. They came into this conference season as a co-favorite and, with their 6-2 record, have mostly lived up to that ranking. Their two losses have been at home to SDSU, who have yet to lose a conference game this year, and recently on the road to a semi-revitalized UNLV. Their SDSU loss has been their only home loss so far, so this game will definitely be a challenge for the Lobos
The Broncos are led by junior forward James Webb III, who is one of the front-runners for MW Player of the Year. He’s averaging 16.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game for the season, numbers that jump up to 20.8 points and 12.2 rebounds in conference play. He’s also been fantastic on the defensive end, leading the team in blocks and steals. If there’s any major flaw in his game this year, it’s been his three-point shooting. He’s only shooting 27.1% from deep while still taking 4 attempts a game. That’s pretty surprising, as he shot 40.9% from deep last year. He has made up for that by shooting a great 63.1% from inside the arc, though, which has kept his true shooting percentage at a high 58.3%
A very familiar face on this Boise team is Anthony Drmic, the Australian senior who Hugh Greenwood literally threw through a wall one time, who is back after a medical redshirt season. The surgery on his ankle almost ended his career, so it’s a testament to him that he’s back and being productive, averaging 12.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per game. However, the injury does seem to have taken away some of his explosiveness, which is mostly apparent in the reduced number of two-point attempts that he’s been taking this year. He’s still drawing a lot of fouls and converting at the line and he’s also still effective from deep, but he’s not quite the same player we’re used to.
The other starters are likely going to be guards Mikey Thompson and Lonnie Jackson and forward Nick Duncan. Thompson is a senior who has really seen his production jump this year, posting career bests in points, assists, shooting, and rebounds. His emergence might not completely replace what they lost from Derrick Marks’ graduation, but it does soften the blow a bit. Jackson is a grad transfer from Boston College and his job is mostly to shoot threes (surprise, surprise), which he does at a 38.8% clip. Duncan is a junior from Australia who looks like the guy you’d choose last in pickup, but who is a sniper from deep. He shoots a lot of threes and makes them at a 34.3% rate, although he is kind of a streaky shooter from range. Whatever big is guarding him is going to have to make sure that they don’t lose track of him on the perimeter, as a couple of open shots might really get him going.
Boise as a whole is a surprisingly mediocre three-point shooting team, only making 33.7% of their attempts, but that doesn’t stop them from taking a lot of them. They make up for that deficiency by shooting 54.7% from two, which is 21st in the country, and by taking, and making, a bunch of free throws. All that adds up to the 56th ranked offense on KenPom.com. They’re also an above-average defensive team, drawing mostly from their ability to create turnovers, deny second chances, and limit free throws.
Scattered Thoughts
- Another game, another freshman stepping up to give a solid performance. I remember hearing from one of the Lobo coaches, either Noodles or Alford, that at this point, they can’t really consider themselves freshmen anymore, as they have more than half of the season under their belts and using their inexperience as an excuse isn’t valid anymore. We could argue the truth of that statement a bit if we wanted to, but regardless, it’s good to see each of Jordan, Anthony, and Dane stepping up and having quality games recently. The next trick is for them to do that consistently. Given their abilities, there’s no reason to think that any of them aren’t capable of building that consistency, so it will be interesting and exciting to see which of them actually do. If all three do, this team could be really dangerous in March out in Las Vegas.
- We’ve seen this team play down to their competition a few times this year already, so there’s definitely some comfort in seeing them destroy a team that they’re supposed to be better than. I think that part of it is that the coaching staff is keeping up the intensity, even when the game seems to be well in hand. They had the Lobos is a three-quarters pressure zone fairly late in the game, which not only kept their energy up, it didn’t even give Air Force a chance to get back in the game. In this conference, there are several teams that the Lobos will be favored, if not expected, to win big. But, if they allow some of those teams to get back into the game, they’ll drop a couple that they have no business losing. Sure, the players are the ones who need to stay focused all the way through those kinds of games, but the coaches can definitely do their part to make sure that happens.
- All that said, this was one of the easiest parts of the schedule (on paper) and we’re now about to get into one of the hardest. With the next four games being at Boise, against UNLV, at SDSU, and at USU, we’ll really get to see exactly where this team stands. If they can go 3-1 or 4-0, they will completely re-establish themselves as being in the upper tier of the conference and depending on who they beat, could be in a good position to win the conference title. If they go 1-3 or 0-4, however, they will instead establish themselves as being a middle-of-the-pack MW team, which would clearly be a disappointment. 2-2 doesn’t really feel like it would be encouraging or a disappointment, just kind of there. Whatever happens, this is a really important stretch of games, so hopefully these past two games were a good tune-up to get prepared for it.
- It’s funny how with way the schedule shakes out and with the other games that are going on tomorrow, the UNM-Boise game will be stuck on ESPN3 right after UNM-AFA was shown on TV. I was ready to be outraged that this one wasn’t until I saw that the MW games on TV are CSU-WYO, which is a rivalry game, and SDSU-UNLV, which should be a really good one. At least we didn’t have a spot taken by the AFA-SJSU game…
- My only disappointment about the walk-ons playing at the end was that Connor Joy’s points per 40 minutes dropped from 120 to 60, thanks to his one minute of action. On the bright side, he’s still shooting 100% from three.
Prediction
Boise tends to be really good at home and their bigs definitely provide matchup problems with their perimeter shooting. The Lobos do have the pieces to take the Broncos down, especially if Tim Willi, so I think that this will be a close one. However, I’ll predict an 81-78 win for Boise.
Game Info
Who: UNM Lobos (11-8, 5-2) vs. Boise State Broncos (15-6, 6-2)
Where: Taco Bell Arena, Boise, ID
When: Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 3:00pm MT
Radio: 770 KKOB
TV: ESPN3 (Stream only)