Author: Zach

Lobo Baseball Series 3 Preview: Air Force

The Lobos (4-3), start off their Mountain West schedule this weekend, as they travel to Colorado Springs to take on the Air Force Falcons (4-3). Coming into this series, the Lobos have lost 3 of their last 4 games, but don’t let that scare you off from this team. Last weekend, the Lobos played a tight series against a very talented Dallas Baptist team, where the Lobos lost the deciding game 7-6 in 11 innings. In that game, the Lobos came back from down 4-1 in the 9th to send the game to extra innings, then took a 6-4 lead in the top of the 11th before a three-run homer won the game for DBU. In their midweek game against nationally-ranked Texas Tech, the Lobos had one bad inning and lost the game 7-2. While the final score looks like a blow out, the Lobos had plenty of chances, including a bases load opportunity in the 8th down 5-2.

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Lobo Baseball Series 2 Preview: Dallas Baptist

After their season-opening sweep of Binghamton last weekend, the Lobos (3-0) take the show on the road to face a very talented and familiar face this weekend when they head to Dallas to take on the Patriots of Dallas Baptist University (3-1). This is an important series for both teams, as it could be the difference in seed lines for the NCAA Tournament. A good thing for the Lobos this year is that they will have a lot of opportunities to pick up great wins, which will be useful if they need an at-large bid, but it would be great to start getting these wins in the second week of the season, rather than needing to pick them up later. It will be important for the Lobos to get great starting pitching this weekend, since it is probably the only area in the matchup where they have a decided edge right now. This should be a fun series to watch, and quite frankly, I hope we get to see this become an annual series for years to come.

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Men’s Basketball Seeding Possibilities

The end of the regular season for the Lobos and the rest of the Mountain West basketball teams is coming up – after all, the conference tournament is starting in less than two weeks – and there isn’t a team locked into a seed line yet for the tournament. What happens over the next week and a half will decide every seed line and even the regular season champion, or co-champions. While the Lobos aren’t in the running for the regular season championship anymore, they have plenty to play for over the next week and a half. To get a better sense of that, we’re looking at all the possible scenarios that could play out, and how those scenarios affect each team in the conference. And in particular, in the very likely case that we’ll see some teams tied in the standings, who holds the tiebreakers?

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Lobo Baseball Series 1 Preview: Binghamton University

The long journey of the 2017 Lobo Baseball season starts this weekend against Binghamton University, where the Lobos will face the Bearcats in a three-game series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Lobos look to get their season off to a great start before their schedule really heats up next weekend when they travel to Dallas Baptist. This should be a very good series to start the season, since Binghamton is a talented team that also made the NCAA Tournament last season.

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2017 Lobo Baseball Season Preview: Part 1

Hope springs eternal for the Lobo Baseball team, as they look to make this year the year that Lob-Omaha becomes a reality. They’re coming off a very strong season, in which they went 39-23 (20-10 in conference play), won the conference tournament, and made noise in the Lubbock Regional before falling to Texas Tech and Dallas Baptist. Although they lost some talent from last season, the Lobos have reason to be optimistic about their chances this year, as not only do they still return a lot of talent, they brought some excellent players into the program, including many intriguing arms for the pitching staff. The Lobos will once again have a great offense and could very well have the arms necessary to bring fear to teams in a regional. While we don’t know what the season has in store for the Lobos, we know that we are excited to cover the journey and see the great moments and memories that play out over the next few months.

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About Men’s Basketball’s Unbalanced Schedules

The next two games for the Lobos present a great opportunity to discuss the unbalanced schedule that happens in the Mountain West. The Lobos’ next two games are against the only two teams that they play once this season in SJSU (at home) and Air Force (on the road). Because of the current structure of the Mountain West, with 11 teams and an 18-game conference schedule, every year each team plays two teams only a single time, with both a home and away matchup against the other eight teams. Since the start of the 2013-2014 season, when that structure was put in place, the conference has seen a few teams get unfair unbalanced schedules (both good and bad). This has led to some unfair advantages, and in some cases, huge disadvantages. First off, we will look at each year and see what the numbers tell us and break down who caught the breaks in the schedule and who didn’t for all 11 teams. Then, we will look at the possible solutions for this problem, and determine if there is a way that to bring as much schedule balance as possible.

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Women’s Basketball vs. Nevada Game Preview

The Lobos (10-9, 6-3) return home for a three-game home stand, starting Saturday night against a struggling Nevada (8-11, 2-6) squad. The Lobos won the first meeting in Reno 69-63, even without the services of Alex Lapeyrolerie. However, the other three guards did well filling in for her, combining for 53 points (Cherise Beynon 25, Mykiel Burleson 18 and Jayda Bovero 10). If the Lobos can take care of the ball better in this game (17 turnovers in the first meeting), they should be able to win this game going away.

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Women’s Basketball at Wyoming Game Preview

The Lobos (9-8, 5-2) return to Mountain West road play today, as they head to Laramie to take on the first-place Wyoming Cowgirls (14-3, 6-0). This will be one of the toughest games the Lobos will have this year, playing on the road against a very good Cowgirls team that plays great defense and has the best offense in the conference. The Lobos need to bring their A+ game to have a decent shot to win the game. The Lobos must shoot the ball well and limit their mistakes on both offense and defense to come away with the huge road win.

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Women’s Basketball vs. CSU Game Preview

The Lobos (8-7, 4-1) dropped their first Mountain West game of the season on Wednesday at UNLV, thanks to some offensive struggles. They scored only 42 points in the loss, shooting 21.9% from the floor and didn’t hit a three-pointer (0-19) in the game. Losing at UNLV isn’t a terrible loss, even with the Rebels being short-handed for the matchup, and one has to think that they won’t go 0-19 from the three point line regularly. Even with that loss, the Lobos are still in a good position in the conference standings, and have two very important home games this week against two of the top teams in CSU and BSU. The first game is the annual Pack The PIT promotion game against the CSU Rams (11-5, 3-1), who went a perfect 21-0 against Mountain West teams last season, sweeping the Regular and Tournament Championships. The Lobo offense will once again be tested, this time against the best defensive team in the conference. For the Lobos to give themselves the best chance to win, it may be best suited to slow things down a little and make sure to get the ball inside to Rachelle van der Keijl and Jaisa Nunn.

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