After a rough trip to Colorado, the Lobos look to get back to form against Fresno State. Once again, this game is for second place in the conference and again, a win would give the Lobos a series sweep and the tiebreaker for seeding purposes should the two teams finish with the same record. It’s definitely crunch time for the season and it feels like anything can happen, so I’m excited to see what the next couple of weeks holds for the team.

Catching up with Fresno State

Fresno State has had quite a bit happen to it since the last time the Lobos faced them way back on January 2, a 77-62 win for the Lobos in Fresno. For one, they’ve seen their fair share of injuries. Of the five guys who started against the Lobos a couple of months ago, three of them have missed time due to injuries. In fact, it was only their backcourt of Cezar Guerrero and Marvelle Harris that stayed healthy, as their wing, Paul Watson, and their starting posts, Karachi Edo and Torren Jones, all sat out at least three games. They’re starting to get healthy again, though, as Edo and Watson have both recently returned to action in the past week. Jones may or may not play again this season, as Fresno has been really secretive about what’s going on with him, but I’d be a little surprised if he suited up for this game.

The Bulldogs have also found themselves on a bit of a hot streak, going 7-2 in their past nine games, including handing SDSU their only loss of the season. They’re currently riding a three-game win streak, which has seen them jump past the Lobos and into sole possession of second place in the conference.

Because of all of the injuries, Fresno has had to do some experimenting with their starting lineup. Recently, Cullen Russo, Julien Lewis, and Sam Bittner made claims to the open starting spots, although it will be interesting to see what happens now that Watson and Edo are healthy again. Russo is a 6’9” post who has seen his production go up drastically since he was inserted into the starting lineup 8 games ago. He’s had double-doubles in half of those games and has scored 17 points in three of them. He’s also proven to be pretty good on the defensive end, so his emergence has really helped Fresno stay afloat this season.

The 6’4” guard Lewis has started the past four games, but he was playing about the same number of minutes before that. His main job has seemed be on the defensive end, where he has one of the highest steal rates in the conference. Bittner is a 6’6” freshman who wasn’t really playing much at all before Watson and Edo went down. Nothing that he’s done so far has really stuck out, aside from one game where he went 3-6 from deep, so I wonder how many minutes he gets once the others start proving that they’re healthy. Another emergence recently has been Jahmel Taylor, who is just now starting to get some minutes and is doing what he was brought in to do: make threes. In the past four games, he’s 11-17 from deep, meaning that the Lobos will need to make sure that they don’t lose track of him on the perimeter.

As for the other starters, Guerrero is a streaky player who can score a bunch when he’s hot, but he has a tendency to disappear in games at times as well. He’s a quick guy, so I expect him to be a pest on defense. However, he can get overly aggressive and get into foul trouble, which means EB might be able to take advantage of that. Harris, last but absolutely not least, has continued to be one of the best players in the conference and a dark horse candidate for player of the year. In conference play, he’s averaging 21.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 2.5 steals, so the Lobos will really need to put forth a lot of effort if they’re going to slow him down.

As a team, they aren’t particularly great at shooting the ball at a high percentage, but they’re pretty good at offensive rebounds and they’re excellent at taking care of the ball. On defense, they force a lot of turnovers, block a lot of shots, and do a pretty good job of holding their opponents to low shooting percentages. Their Achilles heel has been that they are a little foul-prone and they have a tendency of giving up a lot of free throw opportunities. If the Lobos can take care of the ball and attack the basket, they should have a good chance in this one. Fresno certainly won’t make it easy, though.

Scattered Thoughts

• One of the things that I both love and hate about Lobo fans is how emotional we tend to get. After two straight losses on the road, it feels like general opinion about this team are as low as they’ve ever been and some don’t seem to think – or, strangely, seem to want – the team will win another game all season. But just a week and a half ago, thanks to the incredible comeback against Boise St., most were riding high and thinking that this team was a team of destiny. It’s only because of how much we all care about this team that we can see such extreme emotions about the team in the span of just a week. However, when I take a step back, I don’t think my opinion of the team changes all that much just because of a bad road trip. They are a young team, which means that they can be inconsistent, but there is still an awful lot of talent on the roster, from top to bottom. We’ve seen that they can lose to anyone in the league, but they can beat anyone too, so these next couple of weeks are full of possibilities. Rather than getting down on them, I’d prefer to take a page out of the football team’s playbook and just ask, why not us?
• The news about the director of basketball operations, Cody Hopkins, being under investigation has resurfaced, which – given the week the team has had – feels like a “when it rains, it pours” sort of scenario. Although this feels like it could potentially be really big news, I don’t know what to say about it right now. It definitely looks bad at the moment, but the investigation is still ongoing and I really don’t want to jump to conclusions. I know that one of my personal blind spots is that I have a tendency of thinking the best out of people, and that certainly applies to anyone involved with a team that I root for. I like to think that they’re all model citizens with bright futures ahead of them, and oftentimes I think that ends up being true. When it doesn’t, though, that can be hard to deal with, so I really do hope that this turns out to just be a misunderstanding.

Rooting Interests

As I’ve been doing the past couple of times out, I find myself watching the other Mountain West games and rooting for one of the teams because the outcome helps out the Lobos. So, here are my rooting interests, and rationale for those interests, for the games on Saturday and Sunday:

• Wyoming over UNLV: These two teams are currently fighting it out for 7^th place in the conference, which means that my hope of UNLV falling to 8^th and facing SDSU early in the tournament is still in play. For that to happen, Wyoming will need to pick up a win on the road.
• San Jose State over Utah State: I’m not sure how much this game really affects the Lobos – especially given how up in the air the tournament seeding is right now – so I’ll root for the plucky underdog.
• Colorado State over Nevada: This game could work out well for the Lobos either way, as Nevada is tied with the Lobos for third and a CSU loss would give the Lobos an excellent chance of getting a first-round bye in the tournament. I’ll go with giving the Lobos a little space at the top of the standings, but I won’t be heartbroken either way.
• SDSU over Boise State: SDSU now has the regular season conference championship, so although I enjoy watching them lose, a Boise loss would help the Lobos out quite a bit, as they’re also tied for third. And now that I said that I’m rooting for the Aztecs to win a game, I feel a little sick…

Prediction

The question for this game is whether or not they’ll be able to regroup from their disappointing road trip. They’ve shown the ability to do it before, and I think that they’ll do it again. I’ll take the Lobos to win 75-68 to regain control of second place.

Game Info

What: UNM Lobos (16-12, 9-6) vs Fresno State Bulldogs (19-9, 10-5)

Where: WisePies Arena AKA The Pit, Albuquerque, NM

When: Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 8pm MT

Radio: 770 KOB

TV: ESPN2