So that happened. Fresh off of convincing wins against Northern Iowa (who just beat #5 Iowa State) and NMSU, the Lobos welcomed in a struggling Rice team with full expectations of a blowout. Instead, the Lobos allowed the Owls to storm back from a late 16-point deficit to win on a technical free throw with 0.1 seconds remaining. The Lobos now need to regroup, as they’ll have a lot of work to do to recover from this one.

Game Recap

You know that last day of work before a vacation? The one where you don’t get as much done as you should because you’re too worried about whether or not you remembered to check in for your flight? This game was the sports version of that. With the Lobos heading out to Hawaii the next day and facing an inferior opponent, one has to wonder how much attention the they were giving this game, as they came out as flat as they’ve been all season. 6 minutes into the game, with the Lobos down by 7, Coach Neal pulled almost all of his starters, clearly not happy with their effort. The second unit did bring more energy to the game and after allowing the lead to balloon to 12, they managed to make it a 4 point game with 9:38 left in the first half. The starters came back in at that point and, despite letting the lead get back to double digits, they were able to bring the sort of energy that we’re used to seeing out of them to finish the half on a 17-2 run to take a 44-38 lead.

The second half started out with more good energy out of the Lobos, pushing their lead up to 16 points and keeping it around there for a long stretch. At that point, it seemed like they had learned their lesson from their embarrassing start to the game and that they would cruise to the expected double-digit win. Then, with about 6 minutes to go in the game, they just kind of checked out. After Cullen hit a 3 pointer to make it an 80-65 game with 6:07 to go in the game, turnovers and missed free throws allowed Rice to go on a 10-0 run over the next minute. The Lobos never really recovered, making it seem like they were just hoping that their lead held. Rice’s Egor Koulechov, who had a tremendous game for the Owls, hit a contested, off-balance three to tie the game with 21 seconds left, but instead of getting the last shot, Elijah threw the ball away with 13 remaining in the game. The Lobos played good defense to force a bad shot on Rice’s final possession, but in the scramble for the ball, Tim Williams signaled for a timeout and then immediately tried to wave it off. Unfortunately, the ref decided to grant him the timeout call and even more unfortunately, the Lobos were out of timeouts. So, Rice got a technical free throw with 0.1 seconds left, which they made to give them a 90-89 win.

Players of the Game

For each game, I’m choosing my top three players of the game and giving them points (3 for first, 2 for second, and 1 for third). We’ll keep track of the points all season.

1. Tim Williams (20 points on the season): The ending of the game is going to be what people remember out of Tim this game but that’s kind of a shame, as he played really well in the second half. In that half, he went 7-8 for 14 points and had 6 rebounds, which was what helped the Lobos get out to such a large lead, to finish with a final line of 18 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block. Lots of players made mistakes in this game, Tim’s just happened to be the most high-profile.
2. Elijah Brown (22 points on the season): After a surprisingly passive start from him (among others), Elijah started to get going late in the first half and stayed aggressive for the rest of the game. His shooting was off in the second half, but he did a good job of getting to the line and knocking down his free throws. All of this added up to another good final line: 21 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal.
3. Obij Aget (4 points on the season): Big O had a little difficulty guarding the smaller Rice players at times, which was why he only ended up playing 22 minutes, but I thought that he did some nice things in this game. For one, he took advantage of his size on the offensive end, drawing a bunch of fouls and getting some easy baskets. He was also active on the defensive end, picking up 5 blocks on the night. All in all, 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 blocks is a really good line, especially in only 22 minutes.

Scattered Thoughts

• I touched on this in the game preview, but the Lobos’ big three of Elijah, Cullen, and Tim have been playing a bunch of minutes this season and part of that has to do with how they’re all playing at a pretty high level (Elijah and Tim especially), but another part of that is that they’re basically necessary for the Lobos to perform on offense right now. Sam and O are the next leading scorers on offense, but both of them really need to be set up by others, usually Cullen or Elijah, to score right now. On the bench, there have been some guys who have shown flashes of driving the offense, particularly X and Jordan, but no one has shown that they can be counted on to score consistently off the bench. For the team to be as good as I think they can be, someone is going to have to fill that role. The good news is that because this team is young, we should still see some growth out of them as the season goes on.
• This game is yet another in a series of MWC disappointments. Right now, the conference as a whole has very few impressive wins on its resume, which means that the conference is in serious trouble of being a one-bid league. There are still some opportunities coming up for them, namely SDSU vs. Kansas and some potential matchups for the Lobos in Hawaii, but there are going to be a lot of teams in the conference who will need to have stellar performances in the conference season to even be in the discussion for a tournament berth when the time comes.
• I am one of those who believe that you can learn more from your mistakes than your successes, so this game has the potential to teach this young team a lot. They should learn lessons like how they should never underestimate their opponent, no matter who they are. They should never assume a game is over, no matter what their lead is. And they should never overlook the details in the game, no matter how small they are. It’s hard to spin this game as a positive, especially for their postseason hopes, but it could be good for the team in the long run if they choose to learn and grow from it. They are still a very good basketball team, one game doesn’t change that, and I still think that they have the potential to have a very fun and successful season. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

Up Next

The Lobos play in the first round of the Diamondhead Classic in Hawaii against Auburn on Tuesday. A solid showing at this tournament would go a long ways towards making the Rice loss just seem bad instead of catastrophic. For that to happen, the Lobos have to win their first game so they’ll be on the winner’s side of the bracket.