NICEVILLE, FLA. — The University of New Mexico men’s basketball team lost a heartbreaker on Friday night after nearly pulling off an upset over (RV) TCU at the Emerald Coast Classic in Niceville, Fla. The Lobos came back from a 13-point deficit and looked to junior Chris McNeal for a game-winning 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds left in regulation, but it went wide and UNM fell 69-67.
Senior Sam Logwood led New Mexico with a career-high 27 points, leading a trio of Lobos who scored in double figures including McNeal and junior Antino Jackson (12 apiece).
The Lobos will face either St. Bonaventure or Maryland Saturday at 2 p.m. MT (3 p.m. CT).
As a team, despite being outshot and out-rebounded, the Lobos (2-3) forced 16 turnovers on TCU (5-0) and committed just nine to keep them in the game. UNM had 14 points off of turnovers (TCU had 11) and edged TCU 16-14 in second-chance points while the Horned Frogs dominated the paint, outscoring UNM 46-24 down low.
“You have to tip your cap to TCU, it’s a big team, a good rebounding team that just kind of continued to punish us inside and they did a really good job,” head coach Paul Weir said.
“We’re going to play teams very similar to TCU this year, they’re going to be bigger than us, stronger than us, they’re going to be more experienced than us,” Weir said. “They have a lot of things we don’t, so we’re trying to accentuate the things we have, which to me would be speed, shooting, depth and conditioning and trying to bring those into the game as much as we can.”
The Lobos shot a season-low 34.3 percent from the field and 20 percent from 3-point range to hang in with the national vote recipient TCU. The Horned Frogs went 47.5 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from three while the Lobos dominated at the charity stripe, going 15-for-18 for 83.3 percent while TCU was just 9-for-17 (52.9 percent).
The victory marked TCU’s ninth straight dating back to last season when the squad captured the NIT Championship.
New Mexico jumped out on top early, getting out to a 9-2 lead with 17:46 left in the first half before TCU chipped away and cut the lead to one.
The Horned Frogs followed with an 11-1 run over three minutes to take a seven-point advantage, 31-24 with 4:08 left in the half. TCU got up by as much a nine before a layup with eight seconds on the clock from senior Joe Furstinger made it seven, 40-33 at the half.
In the second half, TCU pushed the lead out to 13 before the Lobos roared back on a 12-3 run sparked by a jumper and a three from McNeal to get back within four, 61-57 with 8:31 left to play. The run was full of TCU turnovers and Lobo buckets to shift the momentum in favor of UNM.
McNeal hit a big three with the Lobos down five with 12 seconds left to bring the game within two, 69-67. Weir called his only full timeout to draft a play, but McNeal called the Lobos’ final timeout on the inbound before the final shot went wide.
Saturday’s UNM game will be streamed live on www.EmeraldCoastTV.com/ecc17 and live stats will be available on EmeraldCoastClassic.com. In addition, Jeff Siembieda and Hunter Green will call the game on 770 KKOB-AM.