Jan. 24, 2009
Lobo Basketball
Saturday: Lobos 69, TCU 52
Up Next: Lobos vs. CSU, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, The Pit
FORT WORTH, Texas— There is a possibility that the TCU Horned Frogs had to post a couple of security guards around the rims in the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum.
Because surely more than a few University of New Mexico Lobos had to be thinking about unbolting those baby-soft rims and bringing them back to The Pit in Albuquerque. There also is a good possibility that a few Horned Frogs would have helped the Lobos with the chore.
The rims at TCU were more than friendly to the Lobos, who shot 70 percent in the second half and 57.1 percent overall in grabbing a big Mountain West Conference win, 69-52, Saturday night in Fort Worth.
“I thought our shot selection was very, very good,” said Lobo Coach Steve Alford.
The win pushed the Lobos to 12-8 overall and 3-2 in the MWC race which gives the Lobos one thing in common with all the other top teams in the league: two marks in the loss column.
On Saturday, Brigham Young beat San Diego State 77-71, UNLV beat Utah 75-65 and Wyoming beat Colorado State 83-74. TCU, SDSU and Utah went into the day with one loss in the loss column and all three teams lost.
“We’ve had three road games (UNLV, SDSU, TCU) and we’re five games into this thing and in the loss column, we’re tied for first place,” said Alford. “The kids are doing a lot of good things. I love their effort.
“I think we’re getting better. When we have nights like this where we defend the way we’re capable of defending and shoot the ball well, good things happen.”
The Lobos ended up shooting 24-of-42 from the floor (57.1 percent) and went 7-of-9 from behind the line for 77.8 percent. TCU went 15-of-40 for 37.5 percent and 2-of-14 from 3-point range. UNM won the board battle 28-to-22.
“We come into somebody’s home court and hold them to 37 percent shooting,” said Alford. “I thought we did a great job.”
The Lobos were led by Roman Martinez with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Chad Toppert kicked in 11 points with five rebounds and three assists. Dairese Gary had five assists and three steals plus seven points. Tony Danridge had 12 points and Daniel Faris had 10 points. TCU was led by Kevin Langford with 21 points.
The Lobos went up 12-6 at the 14:52 mark of the first half on a 3-pointer by Martinez. Freshman A.J. Hardeman slipped in a layup at 11:51 to make it 16-6 and at 7:13 Phillip McDonald banged in a trey to put the Lobos up 26-13. TCU outscored UNM 8-4 down the stretch to give UNM a 30-21 bulge at the half.
The Lobos steadily pulled away from the Frogs in the second half. At the 8:28 timeout, UNM was up 55-35. At one point, TCU was 1-of-11 from the 3-point line. UNM cruised to the 69-52 final.
Based on the Lobos’ final shooting numbers, UNM was throwing up bricks in the first half: 12-of-25 for 48 percent.
One of Alford’s battle plans against TCU was to pressure the Frogs on defense, speed up the game and take advantage of UNM’s superior depth.
“I thought the press might have surprised them a little bit,” said Alford. “We came after them early. We wanted to be aggressive playing full court. We thought we were the deeper team and we wanted to speed them up a little bit.
“There was a lot going against us (on the road) and I thought our guys really responded.”
The Lobos next game is in The Pit at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against Colorado State.