The Lobos are back in action Saturday afternoon, when they’ll look to move to 3-0 in conference play with a win against Utah State. Last week showed that they’ve put the Hawaii debacle behind them and that they can win a game away from home. Now they’ll be looking to prove that they should be right in the discussion as being one of the top teams in the conference.
A Little about Utah State
The Utah State Aggies are in somewhat uncharted territory right now, being in the midst of their first season without longtime head coach Stew Morrill, who retired after last season. Tim Duryea, who had been an assistant to Morrill for the past 14 years at USU, took over and has basically been trying to keep the program on track, with mixed results. They’ve yet to have an impressive win on the season, but haven’t suffered any embarrassing losses.
In fact, their biggest loss of the season has actually been a player. Sophomore post David Collette declared his intentions to transfer two days before the season started under dubious circumstances (and the fact that he ended up at Utah, as rumored, didn’t help those circumstances look any better), which meant that the Aggies were left without one of the top returning posts in the conference and a big reason for why they were picked third in the conference preseason poll. However, although they don’t have the same post presence that they were expected to, which would have made them a very scary, balanced offense, they’re still a dangerous perimeter shooting team.
The Aggies are currently 1-2 in Mountain West play and are coming off of two straight home losses. The first of those was a tight game against SDSU that they ultimately lost 70-67 despite being down by as much as 13 in the second half. Their most recent loss, however, was a sloppy game against Boise State that saw both teams trade turnovers for the first 30 minutes before Boise State decided to actually take care of the ball and turn a tight game into a bit of a blowout. The Aggies’ one win in conference play was against SJSU, who might go 0-18 in conference play again this year.
Utah State’s best player is 6’9” junior forward Jalen Moore, who was the team’s leading scorer and a second-team all-MWC player last season. He’s leading the team in scoring again this year, although he hasn’t been nearly as efficient in doing so this year, as all of his shooting percentages have dropped. He’s been a little streaky shooting threes this year, only making them at a 33.9% clip, but he shot them at 39.1% last season, so he’s definitely dangerous out there. Although he’s pretty tall, he’s plays like (and is built like) a wing, so he might have some trouble guarding the Lobo big men. He plays pretty much the entire game, so expect to see a lot of his afro on the court.
Another guy to watch out for is Chris Smith, a 6’4” senior guard who is currently averaging 12.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game while shooting 38.9% from three point range. He has also been really good at not turning the ball over, only averaging 1.1 per game. He has a complete offensive game, having shown the ability to score at all three levels. If they end up guarding each other, it should be fun to watch him and Elijah go at it.
As for the rest of their starters, their other starting post is 6’9” Lew Evans, who is a transfer from Tulsa playing his first season with the Aggies. He’s more of a stretch four than a center, so when he’s in the game that means that the Aggies have five guys on the court who are more than willing to shoot threes. In the backcourt are 6’2” senior Darius Perkins and 6’2” junior Shane Rector. They have fairly similar stat lines (both about 8 ppg and 2.5 rpg), but Perkins is a better shooter (39.6% from three vs. 25.9%) but Rector is the better distributor (3.6 apg vs 1.9 apg).
Overall, the Aggies are a good perimeter shooting team, making 37.5% of their threes, but they do seem to struggle in ways that having quality posts tend to help out. Namely, their two-point shooting percentage is below average, they don’t get many offensive rebounds, and they get their shots blocked more than average. This actually extends to the defensive end, where they allow their opponents to be average or better at all of those things. They also have been strangely struggling guarding against the three, as opponents have shot 37.8% from there against them. That’s especially weird because that’s a huge jump up from the 29.9% they allowed opponents to shoot last season.
Scattered Game Thoughts
- Right now, the Lobos currently play at the 28th fastest tempo in the country and Coach Neal claims that he wants to go even faster. I have some mixed feelings about that, especially given their recent turnover problems. However, if playing faster doesn’t increase their turnover rate, then it could potentially be a good thing. After all, in a game with more possessions, it’s more likely that the superior team will come out on top. I might at some point do a post to illustrate this (don’t hold me to that), but the basic idea is that there ends up being less variance in the outcome the more possessions there are. That’s actually why teams like Air Force or Wyoming traditionally slow the game way down, to reduce the number of possessions and increase the variance of the outcome when they’re playing more talented teams. (It’s also why it’s probably not a good strategy for SJSU to play as fast as they have been, if they’re looking to win more games).
So, if the Lobos are the superior team in the game, which they should be against several of the teams they’ll be playing the rest of the season (especially if and when they get the turnovers under control), it works to their benefit to play faster. It will be interesting to see if they’re able to do it in this one though, as Utah State plays at a below-average tempo. - Quick conference look: Before the conference season started, I thought that there were five teams who had a decent shot to win the regular season title. So far, four of those five have looked the part. UNLV, on the other hand, has stumbled out of the gate, losing a home game to Fresno State and then dropping an away game to Colorado State (where they were up by 5 with less than a minute to go). There are now stronger rumblings than ever that their coach, Dave Rice, is on the hot seat and that if they drop their game tomorrow to Wyoming, he might not get the chance to coach against the Lobos on Tuesday. Quite frankly, given the talent available to them and the expectations that surround the program, it might be an upset for him to last the rest of the season regardless of what happens tomorrow.
Prediction
Between the Lobos being good at defending what the Aggies are good at, the Aggies not really having an answer for the Lobos’ bigs, and that I think the Lobos are just a better team, I have the feeling that the Lobos are going to come out of this one with an 82-72 win.
Game Info
Who: UNM Lobos (9-6, 2-0) vs. Utah State Aggies (9-5, 1-2)
Where: WisePies Arena AKA the Pit, Albuquerque, NM
When: Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 4:00pm MT
Radio: 770 KKOB
TV: ESPN3