Wyoming Game Notes in PDF Format 
March 11, 2009
Lobo Basketball
What: Mountain West Conference Tournament
When/Where:March 11-14, Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center
Thursday: Lobos vs. Wyoming, 9:30 p.m. (Mt)
TV: The Mtn, CBS Sports Network
Radio: 770-AM KKOB / Lobo Radio Network
Online: GameTracker on GoLobos.com
By Richard Stevens — Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
LAS VEGAS — It is a city full of dreamers and we’re not just talking about the folks pulling on the one-armed bandits or doing a quick-count to 21 on a blackjack table. We’re talking about the dreamers who look at the Thomas & Mack Center as a place to resurrect a season and send them to the NCAA promised land.
Dreamers like the Wyoming Cowboys.
That’s the Lobos’ worry Thursday night in the Mack. The Lobos have either already proved to the NCAA Selection Committee that Lobos belong in the 2009 dance or they are on the cusp of that proving. Then you run into a desperate team like Wyoming that has only one ticket to the NCAA tourney and that’s through New Mexico and all the other MWC teams in Vegas.
The Cowboys, if they really believe they can beat Lobos and win this thing, will be fighting like a wounded mother bear protecting a cub. The Lobos have to be up for that challenge.
“We have to take Wyoming very seriously,” said Lobo senior Daniel Faris. “We have to get this win.”
The Mountain West tourney marks a new season for Steve Alford’s Lobos. Ditto for the Wyoming Cowboys. Alford calls it “Season Three.” It is a season of fresh starts for teams like Wyoming. It is a season of resume building for teams like New Mexico.
It is a season where all who enter Thomas & Mack enter with a 0-0 record. Which is the stuff dreams are made of.
The good thing about Season Three is that it can assure a team of advancing to what Alford calls “Season Four” — the NCAA Tournament. You can do that maybe by padding your resume and definitely by winning the whole thing. The bad thing about Season Three is it can lead to other MWC teams advancing to Season Four and maybe leaving you on some distant bubble.
That’s the dream the Cowboys bring to the Mack: beat the Lobos and roll to the MWC title and the league’s automatic bid to NCAA glory.
The Lobos are in a precarious position. They probably have enough on their resume to find a spot in the NCAA field. The Lobos have won 10 of 12 games. They were co-champs in a solid conference. But like Alford said about the whims of the Selection Committee, “You never know.”
Said senior Tony Danridge: “We have to win at least a couple of games.”
If the Lobos are on the cusp, the bubble, to NCAA acceptance, then a first-round loss to Wyoming would be hurtful. The best thing for the Lobos to do is chase the same dreams the Cowboys are chasing. Win the whole thing.
The next best thing the Lobos can do is to get to the championship game and prove that they were one of the top teams in both the regular season and in the MWC tourney. You would think that would do it. But didn’t someone just say, you never know?
“I feel like we’re already there,” said Alford. “But you never leave that to chance. You have to continue to win games at this time of the year. If you win this thing on Saturday (MWC title game), you’re in.”
If you don’t win, you sit in front of a TV on Sunday and hold your breath waiting for your name to be called.
The top choices to win the MWC tourney and skip that Sunday nail-biter are the Lobos, the Utah Utes and the Brigham Young Cougars. Those teams were co-champs in the regular season and used that 16-game season to prove they were the league’s best. But in Season Three both the contenders and the pretenders are 0-0 and playing with a new deck and a fresh deal.
The underdogs in this MWC thing are San Diego State, arguably the most athletic team in the league, and UNLV, a very talented team with the home-court advantage. “This league is tough,” said Alford.
The toughness of the MWC is one reason Alford thinks his Lobos already are deserving of an NCAA bid. “If you win the league, I think you’re deserving,” said Alford.
Yeah, UNM, Utah and BYU did good things during the 2009 season. But if you glance at NCAA brackets put together by some pretty sharp prognosticators and some pretty expensive computers, the Lobos are on a lot of bubbles.
So, do the Lobos need to get to Saturday’s championship to slip off that bubble and into the real bracket? Who knows? That’s why Alford says his Lobos are approaching this tournament “relaxed,” but well aware of the importance of the thing. Not only that, Alford likes to win, period.
“There is a lot of pressure on the game and we understand that,” said Alford. “It’s one-and-done. You lose and you’re out. Wyoming made some really good adjustments in game two. Now, we have to make some really good adjustments in game three.”
The Lobos swept the Cowboys during the regular season and are coming off a hair-raising 74-73 win in Laramie. The Cowboys’ Brandon Ewing had the ball in the closing seconds, but dribbled past an open jump shot to throw up an off-balanced runner that clanked off the rim. The loss didn’t hurt the ‘Pokes much and it handed UNM it’s first league title in 15 years.
If the Lobos beat Wyoming on Thursday, they will play the Utah/TCU winner in Friday’s 9:30 p.m. (Mt.) semi. The finalist from the other side of the bracket most likely will be BYU, SDSU or UNLV. Saturday’s title game is at 5 p.m. (Mt).
Alford said the confidence of being MWC champs is something his Lobos will carry into the Thomas & Mack. “We are going in this thing knowing we are as good as anybody and we can win it just like anybody else.”
The Cowboys might be thinking the same thing.
Editor’s Note: Richard Stevens is a former Associate Sports Editor and sports columnist for The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net. Previous articles are available at The Richard Stevens Corner