Nov. 26, 2005
Recap |
Final Stats |
Notes
Game 5 New Mexico vs. UTEP
Nov. 26, 2005
The Pit/Bob King Court o Albuquerque, N.M.
New Mexico Head Coach Ritchie McKay
“I guess the rivalry is renewed. It was a good college basketball game. I was really proud of our guys. UTEP does some thing in their personnel match-up and on the offensive end you have to double your substitution pattern. I was proud of our bench. The way we came through without David (Chiotti) was a yeoman effort tonight. I thought we got a great effort from a bunch of different people.”
“UTEP is a good team. They’ve been to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for a reason. I know (Filiberto) Rivera and (Omar) Thomas aren’t there anymore, but that’s a good basketball team. When you go to the postseason, especially the NCAA Tournament, it enhances your recruiting and they’ve got some good players. They have length in the guard line as well as strength and that’s tough to match-up with. We only turned it over 12 times, but I think (the pressure) drained our starters and a bunch of their energy, and we didn’t execute as well as we could of on the offensive end.”
(on the importance of the win after playing 5 games in 9 days to start the season):
“This was huge, just for that very reason. There’s not that many teams in the country that have played five games and to play them in the sequence that we did. I know out guys are tired. We’re going to give them two days off this week in preparation for the (New Mexico State) Aggies. I thought we did a good job both mentally and physically to pull this one out.”
UTEP Head Coach Doc Sadler
“When you play a team like New Mexico on the road you want a chance to maybe win it and I thought our team gave ourselves that opportunity. Obviously, Ritchie’s team played very hard and I thought our team did. Physically, I thought both teams competed very hard. I thought we made a couple of mental mistakes and they ended up coming back to cost us, which they usually do on the road.”
“I tip my hat to our guys, I’m not disappointed at all. Obviously, we have to make some better plays down the stretch and I think we will. If you’re going to tell me that going into the last minute you’re going to have a chance to tie it up, I’d have taken it, and I would’ve taken Miguel (Ayala) and Edgar (Moreno) both shooting the basketball. They didn’t go in. It’s not because of effort. They were wide open good shots, our best shooters.”