It wasn’t supposed to go like this. A month ago, the Lobos beat UNLV to cap off a four-game win streak, putting them at 7-2 in conference play, which was good for second place. It seemed like the only thing standing between them and a conference championship was San Diego State, who was undefeated in the conference at the time. But, despite the record, the Aztecs looked mortal, which gave us all hope and confidence in the idea that the Lobos could actually be the better team.

We know how that all ended. A controversial call likely cost the Lobos the game and made it unrealistic that they’d be able to catch up to SDSU. I’m not sure that the team has recovered since. Now, having received a thorough beat down from the Aztecs at home on Senior Night, the team is on a four-game losing streak and, more importantly, look completely defeated.

Game Recap

This game started out having all of the hallmarks of a classic Pit game. The crowd was loud, the Lobos were fired up, and their opponent came out a little flat. The Lobos jumped out to a 16-4 lead, thanks to some solid defense and some hot shooting. Then, the Lobos forgot how to take care of the ball. On seven straight possessions, the Lobos ended their possession with a turnover, which meant that they not only didn’t score for about five minutes, they didn’t even get a shot off for almost four minutes. When a Tim Jacobs free throw finally broke the scoring drought, the Aztecs had ripped off 16 points to take the lead. Cullen Neal found Dane Kuiper for a fast-break layup with 8:52 left to go in the half, which unfortunately was somehow the last basket the team made in the half. All of that meant that in the last 15 minutes of the half, the Lobos only made that one basket. It was only because the team was effective at drawing fouls and getting to the line that they avoided the game becoming a blowout.

The second half saw more of the same. The Lobos had streaks of free throws and streaks of not making a basket, which, along with some defensive lapses, allowed the Aztecs to keep their lead in the double digits. Then, something wild happened. After Elijah Brown missed a three, he managed to steal the ball from the Aztecs Matt Shrigley in the backcourt. As he went up for a layup, Shrigley went down hard on EB’s head, getting called for a shooting foul and a flagrant 2, which kicked him out of the game. That meant that EB was able to shoot 4 free throws, all of which he made to cut the lead to 6, and it gave the Lobos the ball. The Pit was rocking, the team was showing as much life as they had since the beginning of the game, and it felt like they had all of the momentum. Instead, the Lobos didn’t score on their next four possessions, while the Aztecs made three layups in the meantime to retake control of the game.

The Lobos never recovered. After that four-point play, which happened with 9:28 remaining in the game, they only scored           6 points, 2 of which were scored at the end of the game when the walk-ons were on the floor. The Aztecs scored 27 points in that same timespan, only failing to score on three of their final 16 possessions. When the final buzzer ended, the Aztecs walked off the court with a dominant 83-56 victory in hand, and the Lobos were left on the court looking shell-shocked.

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. Elijah Brown (60 points on the season): I’m not sure anyone had a great game, so that leads me to pick a guy who went 2-14 from the field with 6 turnovers. He did manage to pick up a lot of fouls against the Aztecs for the second time this season, showing that he knows how to take advantage of their aggressiveness on defense and how to use that against them. And although he didn’t shoot well, he fought hard all the way through the game.
2. Sam Logwood (14 points on the season): I might have been off in predicting that Sam was going to have a breakout season this year, but he’s been proving himself to be an improved and valuable player for the Lobos. At times, he was aggressive on offense as we’ve seen him, looking like he was going to try to drag the team back in the game by himself when they were down in the second half, showing off a variety of offensive skills that I’m not sure everyone realizes that he has. On top of that, I thought that he played pretty good defense, which was important as he is one of the only guys who has the size, length, and athleticism to match up with some of the Aztecs players. (On a side note, Dane Kuiper is one of the other guys who falls in that category, and I thought that he played pretty well in his limited minutes. In fact, I would have liked to see Sam and Dane get a little time playing together against the Aztecs. Maybe if we get to see face them again…)
3. Cullen Neal (19 points on the season): Helped the team get off to a fast start, hitting a couple of threes and a little floater to score 8 of the team’s first 13 points. He brought a lot of energy to the team in the first half, which is when he did most of his damage. Unfortunately, he was pretty much a non-factor in the second half, thanks to a shot to the head. Hopefully he’ll be okay to play, as he’s an important part of the team and he’s been starting to look like the Cullen that I thought had a chance to make an all-conference team. Plus, the guy deserves to have a great game as much as anyone.

Scattered Thoughts

• The biggest disappointment to me from last night was seeing just how frustrated the whole team is. Everyone looks like they’re on edge right now, as every bad pass, defensive lapse, or missed shot leads to arguments and/or dejected body language. That’s a relatively recent development, so I have to think skid that the team is on is a big factor to it. Losing begets losing, as at a certain point, you just start to expect that things are going to fall apart and that you’ll lose the game. Confidence, or lack thereof, makes a huge difference in any sport, but maybe especially in basketball. The team seems to have lost its collective confidence and for them to have a chance at a successful week in Nevada, they’ll need to find it.
• I feel like the general mood in Lobo Nation after last night might best be described as “apoplectic.” And it’s easy to see why. The team has been struggling for a little while now and last night’s game seemed to be where all of the issues hit their boiling point. But the season’s not over yet, so I, for one, am not ready to give up on any of them. There is still a lot of talent on the team and I still think that they are fully capable of winning the conference tournament. To me, it feels like they’re stuck in a rut, and if they’re able to pull themselves out of it, they could turn back into the team that can beat anyone in the conference. A win at Nevada could be just the thing they need to get things rolling again.

Up Next

The Lobos have their regular season finale on Saturday out in the Biggest Little City in the World. They’ll take on the Nevada Wolfpack, in a game that could be critical for seeding purposes, and simply for morale.