It might have got a little lost in the media shuffle, but the Lobos played a basketball game against CSU this past Saturday. And they played really well! Their impressive win snapped a three-game losing streak and put them right back in the hunt for a conference title. Tuesday night, they’ll take on the first-place Boise State Broncos, where a win would put them in a great position going forward.
A Little About Boise State
What they’ve done so far:
Boise State had a solid non-conference season, going 7-4 with a great win against SMU and no particularly terrible losses. They got off to a hot start in conference play, winning their first four games (at Utah State, CSU, at UNLV, SDSU) before dropping a road game to Fresno State. With that performance, they’re currently tied for first place with Nevada, who they’ll face for the first time next week.
Coach:
Leon Rice is back for his 7th season with the Broncos, where he’s gone 133-80. He’s led the Broncos to two NCAA Tournaments, most recently in 2015, and has hit the 20-win mark five times in the last six years. With his success has come plenty of offseason rumors linking him to other jobs, but he’s stuck around so far.
Probable Starters:
#30 Paris Austin (6’0” Guard, Sophomore): Austin, named after two cool places, is the main distributor on the Broncos, averaging about 3 assists per game. He’s not afraid to score it himself, though, as he’s also averaging 11.4 points per game, which is second on the team. He is most effective driving the ball and either finishing or getting fouled, both of which he’s pretty good at.
#3 Justinian Jessup (6’6” Guard, Freshman): Jessup is having a very good freshman season, averaging 9.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.2 steals per game. He’s a good three-point shooter, making 38% of his shots from range. He doesn’t attack the rim too often, preferring to take most of his shots from the perimeter.
#15 Chandler Hutchison (6’7” Guard, Junior): Hutchison is a high-volume guy, taking about 30% of the team’s shots when he’s on the floor. He is shooting pretty well on the season (55% from two, 40% from three), so I doubt the team is complaining. On top of that, he gets to the free throw line with regularity, where he only shoots 65%. He’s also been an excellent rebounder on the defensive end, pulling down almost 8 defensive rebounds a game.
#13 Nick Duncan (6’8” Forward, Senior): Duncan is finally a senior, despite having seemingly been on the team since the late-90s. He’s still the same guy you remember, who takes the vast majority of his shots from deep and who will muscle up post players on the defensive end. He can find himself in foul trouble at times, which is probably the best way to keep him from being effective.
#11 Zach Haney (6’11” Center, Sophomore): Haney made his first start of the season on Saturday, replacing the injured regular starter, David Wacker. Haney is a solid rebounder on both ends of the floor, is effective down low, and will take the occasional three. He, like just about anyone on the Broncos playing this position, does have a high foul rate, which is one of the things that keeps him from playing more.
Some Relevant Stats
(To read the plots, the further away from the center, the better the team is at each stat. That is, for each stat, the best team will have a value on the outside of the radar plot while the worst team will have a value on the very inside of the plot. For an explanation of the stats, click here. All stats taken from kenpom.com)
The two offenses rate out very similarly overall, but they do go about it slightly differently. The Lobos like to get their points from the free throw line and down low while Boise takes a bunch of threes. What’s interesting about this particular Boise team is that they aren’t great at shooting threes, so they get their points there through volume, mostly. They don’t assist on a lot of their shots, which also kind of goes against what I think of when I think of the Boise St. offense. Still, even though it’s been different, it’s still been effective.
Boise St. rates out as the better defensive rating, mostly thanks to their three-point defense. They only allow teams to shoot 31% from behind the arc and they don’t allow teams to shoot many threes on top of that. Where they do struggle, and where the Lobos can take advantage, is that they put teams on the free throw line too often. In fact, this game will be an interesting contrast of styles, with the Lobos trying to take advantage of that Bronco weakness while Boise tries to shoot a bunch of threes.
Scattered Thoughts
- I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the incidents that occurred before, during, and after the CSU game, but to quickly recap, there was a lot of trash talk between the players before the game, CSU didn’t give the Lobos balls to warm up with at halftime, Joe Furstinger laid a guy out with a screen in the backcourt and then flexed, which nearly caused a fight, and then one of CSU’s players, their coach, and the coach’s wife got into it with assistant coach Terrence Rencher. From all of that, there was a bunch of information that came out, some of it true, some of it false, and the conference even decided to investigate the matter. Based on the conflicting information that came out, nothing really came from it, and by the looks of it, people seem to be siding with whichever side they would have been on to begin with.
For my thoughts specifically, I don’t really have a problem with most of what happened. With the on-court incident, for example, we all have seen Joe get pumped up and flex after making a play (a totally clean play, at that) and he clearly didn’t see the CSU player lying on the floor afterwards. However, CSU didn’t know that Joe hadn’t seen the injured player, so of course they were going to be upset. Some jawing happened, some technical were given out, and we all moved on with our lives.
The thing that bothers me is what happened after the game. Omogbo clearly felt slighted by Rencher (you could see that when Rencher was ejected from the game, as well), but we’ll probably never know exactly why. However, that outburst outside the arena was unnecessary at best and blatantly uncalled for at worst. Sure, maybe Rencher shouldn’t have talked back at all, but I have a hard time putting much blame on him, and he didn’t seem to be the instigator, as was initially “reported” by some outlets (Hi ESPN!). Most of us would have probably done the same thing in that situation.
And hey, if there was anything good that came out from all of this, Lobo fans seem to be fired up right now, which is great to see. Hopefully that can carry over to the next home games and, especially, the matchup against CSU on Feb. 21. Mark your calendars now. You know both teams have. - Lost in all of that noise is that the Lobos played a really, really good game of basketball. Having Jordan Hunter back really helped for one, but the general aggressiveness, hustle, and toughness on both ends of the court by the whole team made the Lobos look like a far better team for just about every minute of the game. In fact, following that game, I think that I’ve walked away from every single conference game thinking that the Lobos were the better team, so if they can play at that level consistently, they’ll have a shot in every game from here on out and can absolutely win either or both of the regular season and tournament championships.
Prediction
Just like last game, the Lobos are going on the road to face a good team who have been playing well, which is always a tough spot to be in. As before, if they play up to their potential for the full 40 minutes, they’ll be able to come away with another big road win. You know what, I feel pretty good about this one, so I’ll pick them to win a squeaker, 82-80.
Game Info
Who: New Mexico Lobos (10-8, 3-3) at Boise St. Broncos (11-5, 4-1)
When: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 9PM MT
Where: Taco Bell Arena, Boise, ID
Watch: ESPNU
Listen: 770/94.5 KKOB