The Lobos started their toughest stretch of conference play with a bang, going into Boise and beating the Broncos 88-83. The win put them in sole possession of second place in the conference with a 6-2 record and re-established them as a team to take seriously in league play. They’ll now turn their attention once again to UNLV in hopes of avenging the loss they suffered in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.

Boise State Game Recap

Boise State tends to be a scary matchup, as they have the sort of high-powered offense that makes you feel like they can catch up with you no matter how much of a lead you build. One key to beating them, of course, is to start the game out strong and actually build a lead. Despite the Lobos having a tendency to get off to slow starts, they jumped on the Broncos from the outset, scoring on five of their first six possessions to build a 10-6 lead at the first media timeout. Unsurprisingly, given the way that both teams like to play, the game was fast and there was no shortage of scoring. However, the Lobos were able to hang on to a slim lead for most of the half, as the teams mostly traded buckets the whole half. They lost the lead near the end, when Joe Furstinger bit on a Nick Duncan pump fake to send the Aussie to the free throw line to shoot three shots. He made all three of them to give the Broncos a two-point lead, which seemed to energize both the Boise State team and their fans. Then, Elijah Brown banked in a 30-foot three pointer as time expired to quiet the crowd and to give the Lobos a one-point advantage at the half.

While the first half was defined the teams alternating buckets, the second half was defined by big runs. Boise was the first to strike, going on a nine-point run, highlighted by consecutive Duncan threes, to turn a four-point deficit into a five-point lead. Then, it was Sam Logwood’s time to shine. With a three, a transition dunk, and an isolation drive to the basket, Sam went on a personal 7-0 run to kick off a 14-0 run for the Lobos that stole all the momentum that Boise had built and put the Lobos back in the driver’s seat. Just when I was starting to feel pretty good about our chances, Boise then decided to go on another big run, using a bunch of threes and three pointers to go on a 15-2 run to take a four-point lead with 6 minutes to go. So what do the Lobos do? They answer right back with a 15-2 run of their own, led by Cullen Neal and Elijah, to give the Lobos a nine-point advantage with two minutes to go. From that point on, the Broncos’ Lonnie Jackson made a few deep desperation threes and Mikey Thompson made a couple of layups, but the Lobos were able to go 9-10 from the free throw line down the stretch to preserve an 88-83 win.

Make no mistake, this was a great win for the team and one that sets them up nicely for the rest of conference play. It also didn’t feel like a fluke, which is just as important. Yeah, they shot a little better than usual, but there weren’t a lot of forced looks. They didn’t turn the ball over that much, but they looked like they just played under control. They shot their free throws well, but they were almost all taken by very good free throw shooters (And Boise, who shoots them at almost the same percentage, shot just as well from the line). The Lobo team that showed up was one we’ve seen before and the one that gives all of us Lobo fans high expectations. Just maybe they’re starting to live up to it.

Players of the Game

1. Elijah Brown (40 points on the season): This game was billed from the outset as a showdown between two potential conference Player of the Year candidates in Elijah and BSU’s James Webb III. If the award was decided from this game alone, it wouldn’t have been a competition. Elijah had another 30-point outing, highlighted by a 4-7 performance from 3 and a 12-14 performance from the charity stripe. He backed up the scoring with 5 rebounds and 5 assists while committing just 3 turnovers (which is solid, given how much he has the ball in his hands). He’s been on a tear recently and if he keeps it up, it’s going to be hard to keep him off the postseason awards ballots.
2. Tim Williams (40 points on the season): Tim has been overshadowed a bit by Elijah’s performances, but he’s another guy who has a shot to be a first-team all-conference selection. He continued his strong season with a 21 point, 7 rebound performance, taking advantage once again of a team that didn’t have much to stop him. He also went 7-8 from the free throw line, which is such a bonus to get out of a skilled big man. He’ll be challenged this week against UNLV and SDSU, but strong performances against those teams could carry the Lobos to a very successful week.
3. (Tie) Cullen Neal (16 points on the season): Cullen played as under control as I can remember while still maintaining the dynamic play that makes him valuable. This was best shown in the second half, when he had a run where he made two threes, a couple of free throws, and had his mandatory-once-a-game lob to Big O for an alley-oop in the span of a few minutes. He’s gotten into foul trouble the past couple of games, so hopefully he can cut back on that, as I think his play has been improving recently.
   (Tie) Sam Logwood (8 points on the season): Sam had perhaps the most important individual stretch by a Lobo in this game when he took over for a few possessions to go on a personal 7-0 run in the second half. He has a tendency to disappear on the offensive end of the court, so it was great to see him bust out and be aggressive in that stretch. He’s too good of a shooter to be passive when he has an open look and with his size, he’s a mismatch waiting to happen when he posts guys up. I still think he could put up 10+ points a game, I just think that he needs to believe that too.

UNLV Game Preview

Now that we’re (somewhat) in the second half of the conference season, we’ll start seeing teams for the second time. The first repeat on the schedule is UNLV, who the Lobos lost to in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, 86-74. Because that game wasn’t too long ago, most of what was covered in the previous game preview still applies, although the newness of the coaching change is starting to fade. Since Todd Simon took over for Dave Rice, the Rebels have gone 4-2, which on the surface is a big improvement from the 0-3 in conference play that they started out with. However, and unsurprisingly, they’re still pretty much the same team. They shoot about the same, they rebound about the same, they turn the ball over about the same, their offensive and defensive efficiency numbers are about the same… you get the point. And let’s be fair, it’s the same players on the team and most of the same coaching staff; they’re probably not going to see a drastic jump in performance.

There are a couple of things that I think contributed to this recent run of theirs. First, they had four home games in that stretch, and that’s made a difference to them. As a team, they’re only 2-5 on the road and while that’s included losses to teams like Arizona and Wichita State, that’s also included UC-Riverside, Colorado St., and Wyoming (those last two contributing to their 0-3 start in conference play). To prove that they belong in the upper tier of the conference, they’re going to have to start showing that they can win true road games (but hopefully they don’t start showing that here). The second thing about their run is that they weren’t really losing by much in the game before the switch. In their 0-3 start to conference play, they lost the games by a combined 6 points. That luck was going to change eventually. Maybe the team had given up on Rice and maybe Simon is better at closing out games, but at this point, I’m not convinced they are much different than they were a few weeks ago.

There is one huge difference though: 6’9” junior forward Ben Carter, one of their best all-around players, is out for the season after suffering a torn ACL in their game on Saturday against SDSU. This is a big blow to the team, as he was their most efficient offensive players, best defenders, and best rebounders. His absence thins out the Rebels’ frontcourt and takes away a big strength that they had against the Lobos. Without him, Steven Zimmerman, Derek Jones, and Dwayne Morgan are the only post players that have played much this season, which is certainly a talented crew, but Jones and Morgan both have tendencies of getting into foul trouble. In the first meeting between the Lobos and the Rebels, Carter helped shut down Tim Williams, which was a big reason why they won. I’m not so sure that they’ll be able to do it again now.

Scattered Thoughts

• Coach Neal shortened the bench a little against Boise State by playing just nine guys, which he’d only done a couple of times earlier this season. It remains to be seen if that will be a trend or not, but I’d be for it. When you’re only playing eight or nine guys, the rotations seem to flow better and it allows players to get into better grooves. Plus, it also means that guys tend to have a better idea of when and how much they are going to play and what their role on the team is, which helps them prepare better. If Noodles sticks with that, that probably means that Jordan has now won the backup point guard spot and that either Dane or Anthony will be the one left out, depending on the matchups. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if either Noodles decides to play both to have a 10-man rotation or just go back to playing 11 guys again, so who knows?
• One thing that the Lobos have been doing with some success is changing their defensive scheme several times during the game. They’ll play some man-to-man, some 1-3-1, some 2-3, some 3-2, some 1-2-2 press, and they might do all of that in consecutive possessions. On KenPom.com, they try to determine the type of defense that the team plays and for the Lobos, it simply says “Inconclusive”. That has to be a nightmare to prepare for and even harder to attack when you’re actually in the game. It seemed to work really well against Boise, as they had a hard time figuring out ways to get their best player, James Webb III, the ball in a position where he could do something. As the team gets better at playing all of the different defensive styles, their defense will get better and more difficult to predict, so that should be fun to watch.
• With this win, it starts feeling a little more reasonable to talk about the team potentially winning the regular season title, although they’re still playing catchup with SDSU. So, because of that, all games and weeks from here on out are important, but this one might just be important-er. For one, a win against UNLV will not only be a nice piece of revenge, it will probably completely knock them out of having any chance at winning the title themselves. Plus, the Lobos will need it to keep pace with the Aztecs. If they beat the Rebels, then on Saturday the Lobos can pull within one loss of first place by beating SDSU in San Diego and be left with most of their difficult opponents having to visit the Pit. Of course, if they happen to lose both games, then they’ll be effectively eliminated from winning the regular season title, so a week from now could see us either feeling like everything is right in the world or searching for answers once again. Should be interesting either way.

Prediction

With the Lobos playing at home, and maybe more importantly the Rebels playing on the road, along with the injury to Carter, I have a good feeling about the Lobos’ chances. In their last meeting, the Lobos found themselves in foul trouble and allowed the Rebels to be uncharacteristically good at not turning the ball over. If they can avoid those two things, and I think they will, they should be able to pull out a nice win. I’ll take the Lobos, 82-74.

Game Info

Who: UNM Lobos (13-8, 6-2) vs. UNLV Runnin Rebels (13-9, 4-5)

Where: WisePies Arena AKA the Pit, Albuquerque, NM

When: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 6:00pm MT

Radio: 770 KKOB

TV: CBS Sports Network