Premature Thoughts on the Men’s Basketball Schedule

by Jono

As we’re in a bit of a lull in terms of Lobo news, the release of the men’s basketball schedule for next year is a welcome sight (you can find it here). Also because we’re in a bit of a lull, we might as well overanalyze the schedule now. Of course, these thoughts should be taken with the usual caveat that we’re still five months away from any meaningful basketball being played, so it’s anyone’s guess as to what any of these teams will really look like in the future. Will basketball even still be played in the future? Probably!

The Good

  • The crown jewel of this schedule is the game at Arizona, which is the first game of a home-and-home series with the Wildcats. This is exciting for all sorts of reasons, especially between the historical rivalry and the fact that Arizona is the type of good team the Lobos have a hard time getting on their schedule. This will absolutely be a hard game for the Lobos, but you have to know that the team will be hungry to prove that UNM is still one of the premier programs in the west. Start making plans to head to Tucson in December; it could end up being a fun one.
  • The Wooden Classic looks like it could be fantastic, with the Lobos potentially having the opportunity to play some high-profile teams, like UCLA, Texas A&M, and Dayton. This weekend will represent some of the best chances that the Lobos will have to pick up quality wins to add to their NCAA Tournament resume, so they absolutely have to avoid a flop like last year’s trip to Hawaii. Given the current state and reputation of the Mountain West, it’s unlikely that if they don’t have a few good wins in their pocket going into conference play, they’ll be able to pick any up after that.
  • I railed on the spacing of the bye days in conference play for the Lobos several times last season, particularly that they were so early in the conference season that they were going to be worn out by the end. Well, they won’t have that issue this year, as they have both of their byes in the last four weeks of the season. I’m going to count that as a good thing, as they should be able to be fully rested heading into the conference tournament. It’s still dumb that the conference can’t seem to figure out how to schedule a bye in both the first and second halves of conference play – or at least more spaced out – for each team.

The Bad

  • Remember how unimpressive the home slate of non-conference games was last year? This year might be even worse! Based on final KenPom ratings from last season, the 107th ranked Aggies will be the best team that the Lobos will play in the Pit this upcoming season. The next best team will be UTEP, who finished ranked as the 215th best team. After that, it goes Houston Baptist (273), Idaho State (279), Abilene Christian (317), and Arkansas-Pine Bluff (345). I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there aren’t a lot of Lobo fans eagerly waiting to snatch up tickets for most of those games. If anyone is looking for evidence that it is hard to convince teams to come play here, this season’s schedule should be exhibit A. As a side note, there are only six non-conference home games this year, which is part of the reason that you’ll only be able to head down to the Pit to watch them play twice between November 18th and December 17th.
  • The roughest stretch for the team, at least on paper five months away from the season, is clearly the series of games that starts at Arizona and continues through the home game against Nevada. With away games at Arizona, SDSU, and Utah State during that period and home games against Fresno State and Nevada, it’s way too easy to envision a scenario where the team only wins a couple of those games. If there’s a bright spot, if the team is playing well going into the beginning of conference play, they have a chance to pick up big wins against some of the other teams that will figure to be playing for the top spots in the conference.
  • Thanks to the joys of the unbalanced schedule, the Lobos only get to face Air Force and San Jose State once each next season. Those two teams were the worst in the conference last season and figure to be at or towards the bottom again this year, so ideally the Lobos would get to play them as many times as possible. Instead, they get kind of a worst-case scenario, as not only do they play them once each, the Air Force game is in Colorado Springs, which never seems to be a fun place to play. Plus, I don’t get to make my yearly dumb and easy joke about there being plenty of good seats available in San Jose. Just a shame all the way around.