A new season brings new hopes, dreams, and expectations for Lobo Men’s Basketball Fans. This post mostly focuses on the first two. We’ll take a quick look at the non-conference schedule, make some bold predictions, and fill out our preseason MW ballots. Let’s do this.
Category: Lobo Basketball
Men’s Basketball Season Preview: 2018-2019
The time has finally come for year two of the Coach Paul Weir Era! After a promising first season, with the Lobo faithful buying into the Weir’s vision for the program, there is plenty of reason to be excited to the season to begin. There are a lot of interesting stories to watch as the season unfolds, as it promises to be a memorable one. Today, we look at some of the possible stories to watch, what we will have our eyes on, an overview of the roster, and how the Lobos could stand in the Mountain West and in the NCAA.
Corina Carter is a Lobo!
UNM Women’s Basketball got better today, as high school senior guard Corina Carter gave Coach Bradbury and the staff a verbal commitment while on her official visit this weekend. Carter, from San Antonio, TX, is ranked as a Top-100 player in the 2019 class and will help the team from day one in a Lobo uniform at either guard spot. The news is great for Bradbury and staff as it gives them their first high-level true point in their first few years at UNM.
Carter joins Autumn Watts (2019 post) in the Lobos’ 2019 class, as the Lobos have four scholarships open for the class with Nunn, Lines, McClure, and Moore graduating after the 2018-2019 season. This is a start to a great recruiting class that could very well be locked in November. The Lobos have also had 2019 Forward Azaria Robinson (Alaska) and 2019 wing Adriana Avent (Sacramento, CA) visit UNM on official visits and I would consider the Lobos the favorite for both players. Talent is coming to UNM and it is an exciting time for Coach Bradury and Co. Don’t sleep on this program on the rise.
The Difficulty of Scheduling: An UNM Story
Scheduling for Men’s Basketball has changed a lot over the last 10 plus years. Multi-team events (MTEs) have become vogue and have helped some schools form their schedules. These exempt tournaments are good things if you end up in a good MTE with potential good wins on your schedule, but if you end up having a bad three games in four days, you could find it difficult to be in the at-large conversation. At least, if you aren’t in a Big 6 conference (Power 5 + Big East). MTEs have shifted how Big 6 Conference teams plan the rest of their non-conference schedules, as they lose the need to go on the road for home and home matchups against non-regional, non-Big 6 teams. This has hurt teams in the non-Big 6, because the home games against Big 6 schools are uncommon and really only come into fruition if you are in a great recruiting location (Las Vegas, San Diego, and similar locations) or if you have a local player that went to a Big 6 school and their coach wants their player to have a homecoming game of sorts.
One school that has been affected by scheduling in recent years is UNM, who has been especially affected this year when their MTE fell through with both the Alaskan Shootout ending and the planned event with Saint Mary’s changing scope. Beyond that, they want to schedule good teams for home games and want to have a couple of home and homes with Big 6 schools each year. But that has become more difficult as well.
Paul Weir’s Ten Degrees of Separation: The Road from NMSU to UNM
In the spring of 2017, Paul Weir was named as the new head coach at UNM, filling the open position that was vacant after the firing of Craig Neal. While it is easy to say that Coach Weir was a great hire after his excellent first season as the Head Coach at NMSU, there were a few things that needed to happen for Coach Weir to even be considered for the position. In order to do so, we have to go back to early 2016 and look at the dominos that had to fall for UNM to hire Paul Weir:
Mountain West Men’s Basketball Scheduling 2019
At noon today, the Mountain West announced the conference schedule for the 2018-2019 season. While there are some conferences where the schedule doesn’t matter too much because of the round-robin system they employ, the MW has a conference slate that influence who wins the conference, or even who gets first-round byes in the MW Conference Tournament. Last season, it is impossible to deny that they Lobos benefitted greatly from the schedule, as they didn’t have to travel to San Diego and didn’t have to face Nevada at home. While there could be a debate on how much impact it had on their final standing, but there was an impact. With the Conference at 11 teams and an 18 game schedule, each team will play eight teams twice (home and road) and two teams once (one home, one road). For conference standing’s sake, you want to have your bye games to be games that you could lose, and don’t want games taken away that you should win. Also within the schedule, there will be periods of rough patches, which we will look at where these could pop-up for each team.
Men’s Basketball: 2018-2019 Roster Breakdown
As we hit the first full offseason of the Paul Weir Era of Lobo Men’s Basketball, wee see that a lot has changed in the last 13+ months. Just about everything from last March, from the general perception of the program to the roster makeup. Going into next season, there are only two players on the roster, Seniors Dane Kuiper and Anthony Mathis, that were recruited and played for Craig Neal. Mathis, for his part, was almost gone too, but thankfully ended up staying and playing a huge part in the 2017-2018 season. It is absolutely incredible that Weir has been able to turn the roster over in such a short period of time and end up with a team expected to be at the top of the Mountain West.
MW Tournament Quarterfinal: UNM Lobos vs. WYO Cowgirls
Every Lobo game during the Mountain West Tournament I will be adding thoughts throughout/after the game in a blog post. This will be the first of this experiment, which should be fun to do. Let’s have fun.
Lobos have hit two threes already tonight, one by Flye and another by Bryan. If you read my preview I said the Lobos need to hit 10+ threes tonight.
There is a good sized crowd tonight for both Wyoming and New Mexico, should be a fun atmosphere all night.
3:06 1Q: Lobos 10 Wyoming 8. The pace so far tonight is in between what the Lobos and Cowgirls want, no decided advantage right now. The Lobos need to find Beynon and Nunn in the offense
There is The Microwave heating up with a 3. Madi Washington will be huge in this game.
Playing Nunn and AT together this game could be a game changer.
End of the first: Lobos 13 Wyoming 10. The first quarter was played at Wyoming pace but the Lobos end the quarter with a 3 point advantage.
Washington and AF are already putting their fingerprints on this game, and are trying to make me look smart.
Nunn starting to dominate the offensive glass, she has 6 points and 6 rebounds already tonight.
AT with another blocked shot, she is playing so well on defense.
4:12 2Q: Lobos 22 Wyoming 16. Nunn will have a 2 Free Throws after the media timeout, looking for her 7 and 8th point of the night to go along with 7 rebounds.
AT now has 5 points, 2 rebounds, 4 blocked shots. Thanks for making me look smart.
After playing at Wyoming’s pace in the first quarter the Lobos have been able to turn up the speed of the game with their defense and have outscored Wyoming 20-6 in the quarter.
This lead has been built with the Lobos defense.
Halftime: Lobos 33 Wyoming 18. Lobos were led by their defense and got 11 points and 8 rebounds from Nunn, 6 points from Washington and AT had a big first half with 5 points, 2 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots. To build a 15 point lead at the half against this Wyoming team is very impressive.
Lobos did a great job of limiting MW Player of the Year Liv Roberts impact, holding her to 4 points, 1 rebound, and 1 assists in the first half.
7:16 3Q: Lobos 33 Wyoming 25. Lobos have come out flat in the 3rd quarter and Wyoming has taken advantage and has started the half on a 7-0 run. Lobos need to find traction soon or this one could slip away.
4:49 3Q: Lobos 39 Wyoming 29. After getting the pace they way they like in the 2nd quarter the tide has turned in the 3rd as the Lobos have only scored 6 points so far this quarter. The tone of the game has shifted.
Wyoming has dominated the 3rd quarter so far outscoring the Lobos 20-9 with 2:16 left in the quarter.
End of 3 quarters: WYO 43 Lobos 42. Lobos lost their 15 points halftime lead and will have work to do to pull this one out. The Cowgirls won the third 25-9. The Lobo starters besides Nunn are 4 of 26 from the floor.
6:28 4Q: Wyoming 50 Lobos 45. Wyoming has outscored the Lobos 32-12 in the second half. The Lobos need to find a way to get Nunn the ball and turn the tide of the second half.
Lobos fall 69-66 and will wait for the fate to see if they will be playing more basketball. Lobos had great performances from Nunn, Washington and AT.
There will be questions that need to be asked about this game, the Lobos had their chances to win this game and have a golden opportunity to make it to the Championship game. I am surprised by the lack of minutes of AT in the second half and the inefficiency of Beynon, Buck, and Flye (combined 7 for 34). The game change in the third quarter when the Lobos shot 1 of 14 from the floor while Wyoming was 9 of 13 which lead to Wyoming turning a 15 deficit into a 1 point win.
Women’s Basketball MWC Tournament: UNM vs. Wyoming Preview
The sixth-seeded Lobos (23-9) advanced to the quarterfinals of the MW Tournament with a dominating win against SJSU last night and will take on the third-seeded Wyoming Cowgirls tonight. In the two meetings during the regular season, the Cowgirls went 2-0 with an 11-point win in Wyoming and a 1-point win in The PIT. As we have seen in the past, it can be very difficult to beat a team three times in one year and this time it could help the Lobos. In the first two meetings, Wyoming was able to control the pace of play (both games they were in the 60s) and keep the Lobos from finding separation in either game. There are some adjustments that the Lobos will be looking to make, finding ways to take every single little advantage to position themselves with a birth in the semifinals on Wednesday.
2018 Men’s Basketball MWC Tournament Preview
After 10 weeks of Mountain West play, it’s finally time for the MW Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas! Zach will be on the scene giving updates and reports all week, but before that happens, here is our preview of each of the 11 teams in the conference, including each team’s road to a championship, and what I think about their uniforms.
Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to enter our MWC Bracket Challenge! There’s even a prize this year!