The Lobos lucked out when a couple of other favorites in the Diamond Head Classic lost their first round matchups as well, which meant that they potentially still had the opportunity to collect a couple of quality wins. They got their first shot against BYU on Wednesday morning. It did not go well.

Game Recap

There’s a running joke among people who play sports video games that sometimes the computer decides ahead of time that you’re just going to lose the game. The ratings of the opposing players are increased, those of your players are decreased, and all of the luck breaks in the computer’s favor. Basically, your best chance is to just quit and try again. This game felt like the real life version of that, but unfortunately, when the Lobos quit, the game just kept going.

The game started with BYU on fire. In the first 10 minutes of the game, they had scored 30 points, including a ridiculous 8-13 performance from three point range, all of those makes coming from Chase Fischer and Nick Emery. What that hid was that the Lobos weren’t actually doing all that terribly themselves. They had scored 19 points themselves and were shooting pretty well in general. Towards the end of the half, Anthony Mathis and Elijah Brown hit a pair of threes to turn a 10 point game into a 4 point game and making it seem like the Lobos had weathered the storm. The Lobos then proceeded to turn the ball over their next three possessions, killing their momentum and allowing BYU to go into the half up 46-38.

Still, there was hope coming out of the half that the Lobos would be able to come back and ultimately defeat their old rival. After all, a team can’t shoot that well all game, right? Wrong. They can actually shoot better. After going 17-34 from the field (50%), including 9-16 from three (56.3%), the Cougars went 15-27 from the field in the second half (55.6%), including 7-12 from three (58.3%). They also went 13-16 from the free throw line (81.3%) in the second half for good measure. Fischer ended up with 41 points and Emery added 20 himself, meaning that the two of them nearly outscored the Lobos by themselves.

Now, some of that was them hitting tough shots, but part of it was that the Lobos seemed to have just given up at a certain point. That point seemed to be around the 10 minute mark in the second half. The Lobos had just gone on a 5 point run to bring the game back to 15 points and they got a steal to lead to a fast break. Mathis ended up with a weird angle on his layup attempt, which hit the bottom of the rim, and he caught his own rebound while stepping out of bounds to turn the ball over and trigger a media timeout. After that timeout ended, BYU went on a 10-0 run to push the lead up to 25 and the Lobos didn’t have any fight left in them after that. From that point on, the Lobos never got closer than 22, eventually falling by 30.

Players of the Game

For each game, we’re choosing our 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 (22 points on the season): Tim played pretty well in this game, picking up 16 points and 8 boards, while playing with more focus and intensity than most of his teammates. He’s starting to show off his midrange jumper more, which has the potential to open the floor up more for him and his teammates. He still probably needs to touch the ball more, but that’s going to take a team effort.
2. Elijah Brown (27 points on the season): Elijah didn’t shoot particularly well, going 1-5 from inside the arc and 2-6 from three, but he still managed to earn 10 free throw attempts. That helped him get to his 16 points. He struggled more on defense than usual, which was apparent by how often BYU got free on the perimeter, but despite all that, I think he belongs here for his overall effort in the game.
3. Anthony Mathis (1 point on the season): This game was the best Mathis has looked all season, dropping 5 points and an assist in his 14 minutes of action. One thing that I judge freshmen on is how confident they look when they’re out there and this was the most sure of himself that he’s been all year. He’s one of those guys off the bench who has the potential to be that scorer the team needs so desperately. I hope that he can build on this.

Scattered Game Thoughts

• Here are a few noticeable differences between the two teams in this game. As we can see, BYU took better care of the ball, took advantage of UNM mistakes, moved the ball around better, which led to a lot of open looks on the perimeter:
  • Turnovers: UNM: 17, BYU: 11
  • Points off Turnovers: UNM: 6, BYU: 19
  • Assists: UNM: 8, BYU: 21
  • Three Point Shooting: UNM: 5-12 (41.7 %), BYU: 16-28 (57.1%)
• This tournament always had the potential to be a pivotal moment of the season, but I had sort of always been under the impression that it was going to be a positive moment that launched them into a strong conference season. Now, who knows? The season feels like it’s at a crossroads and it’s hard to say how things will go from here. It’s certainly possible that the Lobos will continue to go on a skid, like they did at the end of last season, but I still think that it’s possible that they pull themselves together and become the top-tier team in the conference they have the potential to be. We have to remember that this is a young team (KenPom has them as the 304^th most experienced team in the nation out of 351), so there’s every chance that we’re just seeing some growing pains. That said, it’s up to Coach Neal and his staff to guide them through this time.

Up Next

The Lobos get a day off to collect themselves before playing Washington State on Friday at 11am MT. If they win that game, they’ll at least feel like they have something to build on as they head into conference play, which now has an increased importance after this week’s struggles.