Dec. 17, 2006
POSTGAME NOTES/QUOTES
New Mexico vs. Longwood
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Albuquerque, N.M. – The Pit/Bob King Court
Team Notes
New Mexico improves to 7-2 with the 79-60 victory…Longwood is 3-9
The Lobos have won 8 in a row at The Pit and are 40-3 at home since the start of the 2004-05 season
New Mexico trailed at halftime (33-32) for the second straight game at home…the last time that happened was Dec.
15 and 21, 2002…the Lobos trailed New Mexico State 36-27 and Southern Utah 35-24 and lost both games
UNM led just 43-42 with 16:00 left in the game, then outscored the Lancers 36-18 the rest of the game
New Mexico shot a season-high 82.4% (14-17) from the FT line…they came into the game making just 65% on the season, including 61.5% the past 4 games
The Lobos were 10-of-21 from the floor in the first half…they attempted their 21st FG of the second half at the 10:44 mark…UNM shot 56% (18-32) from the field in the second half, while holding Longwood to 37% accuracy
New Mexico allowed its fewest points in 6 games, since a
78-54 victory over Kansas State…the 41% shooting by Longwood is also the lowest since K-State made 29% on Nov.
21
Individual Notes
Aaron Johnson
recorded his 3rd double-double of the season with a season-high 14 points and 11 rebounds –had just 10 points and 16 rebounds in the previous 3 games before tonight
tied his career high with 25 points…he also had 25 against Colorado –also contributed 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 block
came off the bench to score 9 points on 3 of 5 attempts from 3-point –is 13 of 22 (59%) from beyond the arc the past 4 games
equaled his season high with 4 assists –was 6-27 (22%) from 3-point for the season through the first 7 1/2 games, but has made 4 of 7 in the past 3 halves
tied a career-high with 3 rebounds
New Mexico Head Coach Ritchie McKay
“After about half a month, we finally had a Lobo half. So I was pleased with that.”
(on what he said at halftime of tonight’s game):
“Honestly, our guys said it all. There’s a certain point as a coach where you feel like `man, what else can you do?’ Darren (Prentice) said something at halftime that was really reflective of these (past) two-and-a-half weeks that we’re not having fun anymore and we have to bring some energy and enjoy the game. I think we did that for 20 minutes.”
“In the first five games, I don’t care who it was that walked down that tunnel, we thought we were really good.
Then after suffering the losses that we did, the way we did, it seemed like nothing was going right, we just didn’t have that same swagger. Hopefully we’ve kind of come out of the fog, but I want you to know that in a basketball season, those things sometimes happen and our ability to manage it, get them out of it, try and speak life into them is going to be critical to how we respond to it.”
Longwood Head Coach Mike Gillian
“From our perspective that was pretty similar to what we’ve experienced so far this year. We’re not far away from beating somebody like that. We go around, travel to a bunch of places, play a bunch of good teams on the road.
We played at [George Washington] earlier in the year, led for 30 minutes, but it kind of got away from us at the end. We just need a little more from somebody in a game like that. In order for us to win games like that we need to be great. We need to play great for 40 minutes, not 20 or 30.”