After somewhat of a letdown game in Las Vegas, where they picked up their first loss in conference play, the Lobos look to return to form tomorrow in their game against Wyoming. The Cowboys always provide a unique challenge, and one that a good chunk of the team hasn’t seen before, so the Lobos will need to be as prepared as ever if they’re going to come out with a win.
A Little about Wyoming
Wyoming’s head coach is Larry Shyatt, who I think I’m required by law to mention that he was an associate head coach for the Lobos back in the 80’s. He’s in the sixth year of his successful tenure in Laramie and is coming off leading the team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2001-02 season. Of course, he didn’t do that alone, as he had four seniors in the starting lineup, including the near universally beloved Larry Nance Jr., who put up a second straight first team all-conference season before getting drafted by the Lakers in the first round. While that senior-laden team helped the team have a lot of success last year, it does leave this year’s team as a relatively inexperienced bunch.
The one returning starter is a pretty good one, though. 6’2” senior guard Josh Adams is an explosive athlete with a nice outside shot and an elite ability to draw fouls. Adams is currently putting up a line of 23.1 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game, making him a strong contender for conference player of the year. He’s the main focal point of the offense this season, using 36.1% of the team’s possessions when he’s on the court, which is the 4th highest rate in the country. Even with that, he still has the 113th highest assist rate in the country. Needless to say, if the Cowboys score, he’s probably involved. A big strength of his this season has been his three-point shooting, as he’s taking 7.3 attempts a game and is making 36.6% of them. He has cooled down considerably in conference play, both in attempts and percentage, but he’s still dangerous out there. He’s also been known to dunk over anyone who gets in his way, so don’t be surprised if some poor Lobo gets posterized.
Another guy that the Lobos will really need to watch out for is 6’5” junior guard Jason McManamen, who is averagine 12.4 points and 3.3 boards per game and has proven to be the sniper on this team. He shoots about 6 three point shots a game and has made 43.3% of them. He’s a guy who the Lobos really can’t afford to lose out on the perimeter, otherwise it seems likely that he’ll put up a three-point performance similar to the 5-7 shooting he did against UNLV. McManamen and Adams both play over 33 minutes a game on average, so expect to see both of them on the floor a lot.
The other starters are a bit tricky to figure out, as the only other constant has been 6’9” sophomore forward Alan Herndon, who profiles as a stretch four. Five other guys have started at one point or another for the Cowboys and the team has only used the same starting lineup in consecutive games once this season. My guess is that the rest of the starting lineup will consist of 6’5” sophomore guard Alexander Aka Gorski and 6’10” sophomore post Jonathan Barnes. That probably means that both of those guys will come off the bench.
Regardless of who starts, the Cowboys will have plenty of guys on the court who are able to make threes and more than willing to shoot them. 49.2% of their field goal attempts come from beyond the arc, which is the second highest rate in the country, and they make 36.2% of them as a team. That adds up to 38.6% of their points coming from three pointers compared to the 35.4% that come from twos (which is the lowest of that rate in the country). For comparison’s sake, the Lobos get 23.5% of their points off of threes and 54.2% off of twos. The Lobos have had pretty good success against teams that have such a strong emphasis on the three pointer (aside from their trip to Hawaii), so let’s see if that trend continues.
Scattered Game Thoughts
- A major thing to watch out for in this game is to see which team can control the tempo. At this point, we all know that the Lobos are trying to play as fast as they can while still being effective (instead of playing so fast that they’re rushed, like in the UNLV game) and that Wyoming really likes to slow things down by being deliberate on offense and ignoring offensive rebounds so they can get back on defense quickly to prevent transition baskets. I think that the Lobo offense should be effective enough in the half court to still beat Wyoming, as I don’t see them having much of an answer for Tim Williams, but if they can speed the Cowboys up, then I think that there’s a good chance that they run away with the game. If I were to guess, though, it’s probably going to be a slower-paced game.
- Plenty of people, Coach Neal included, have started to bemoan the lack of production that the team has been getting out of the bench for most of the season. In his presser this week, Noodles mentioned that perhaps it’s because the bench players don’t spend enough time on the court to really get going, as it takes them a bit to get into the flow of the game. That might be true, but in some ways I think that it might also be because the whole offense is really built around Tim W., Elijah, and Cullen, so the younger guys have a tendency to defer to those three when they’re on the court. I don’t think that it’s bad for the offense to run through those three, as they’re all talented players who have the ability to score in a lot of ways. However, there’s a big difference between deferring and supporting. While both will try to set those three guys up, a supporting player will also recognize when he has the opportunity to make a play. If I think back to the game against Nevada where X scored 14 points, he did it by staying within the offense, picking his spots, and being aggressive with the ball when he had the opportunity. Everyone in the rotation was the star on their high school/AAU team, so being a supporting player is definitely a transition for any of them, but I think once they are able to make that transition, we’ll see more production out of the bench as a whole.
- The rumor mill surrounding UNLV’s coaching situation started churning as soon as the Dave Rice “resignation” news got out, which brought about some interesting names. The most interesting, to Lobo fans at least, was Elijah’s father, Mike Brown, which could have implications for the team down the road. Unsurprisingly, the topic came up in Coach Neal’s presser this week and he dismissed the idea, saying that UNLV would have to scrap together a bunch of cash if they wanted to have that. And that’s a great point, for a couple of reasons. First, Mike Brown is a highly qualified coach, with seven years of head coaching experience in the NBA, including a Coach of the Year award, so he is likely to have a lot of options if he wants to coach and would likely command a good salary. Second, UNLV doesn’t really have a bunch of money just lying around, as their athletics department has been running at a significant deficit for three of the past four years and they’ll now be paying another coach to not coach for them. Now, because Mike has made good money coaching in the past (and is still making good money, in fact…), the money might not be as big of an issue as we might think, so this could have some legs to it. However, I’m more inclined to think that he is being mentioned because he’s a coach with a good track record and he’s currently available, just like pretty much every other name I’ve seen thrown around.
Prediction
These games seem to always be closer than you’d think that they would be, regardless of each team’s quality. In fact, the last four games between these teams have gone to overtime. I don’t think that will happen again, but I do think it will be a tight one, with the Lobos pulling off a 65-60 win.
Game Info
Who: UNM Lobos (10-7, 3-1) vs. Wyoming Cowboys (9-9, 2-3)
Where: WisePies Arena AKA the Pit, Albuquerque, NM
When: Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 2:00pm MT
Radio: 770 KKOB
TV: CBS Sports Network