Stevens: Lobos Open MW Wars With Tough Road Test

December 30, 2014

New Mexico Lobos Women’s Basketball – On The Mountain West Road

Who/When: 3 p.m. (MT), Wednesday — New Mexico (4-7, 0-0 MW) at Fresno State (8-3, 0-0 MW)

On The Air: 610-AM; Live Streaming at www.themwc.com

GoLobos.com: Game Story, Complete Stats

By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com

If you draw a line in the Mountain West standing for non-conference action, Yvonne Sanchez’s Lobos are pretty much in the middle.

There are five teams with better records above the Lobos. There are four teams below them with worse records. New Mexico and Nevada pretty much form the middle sharing 4-7 marks.

However, it all starts new on Wednesday.

“It doesn’t matter what our record is even if it was a better record. It’s a brand new season,” said Sanchez.

“The conference is OK. I can’t say anyone has really stood out. We haven’t had a signature win in our conference, but we’ve had some teams do really well. I think it’s a wide-open conference. There are four or five teams, maybe more, who can win it.”

The 16^th season of Mountain West basketball begins Wednesday with five league games and picks up again with another five MW games on Saturday.

The Lobos have a challenging start to Mountain West play. The Lobos face two teams expected to be in the charge for the 2015 MW title. UNM opens at 3 p.m. (MT) Wednesday against a Fresno State team that is 6-0 at home and carrying an 8-3 overall record. The Bulldogs probably will step on the court with a bit of a swagger with a national RPI of 15.

Alexa Chavez

The Bulldogs also have Alex Sheedy, who is playing like she plans to lead her ‘Dogs back into the NCAA playoffs and maybe even tag on MW Player of the Year honors. Sheedy is coming off back-to-back games where she scored 25 points. Fresno State won the MW Tournament last year in Las Vegas and went NCAA dancing.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Lobos on Saturday when they visit Colorado State. The Rams were the preseason pick along with Boise State to win the 2015 MW title. The Rams won that title in 2014.

The regular-season crown obviously is an important goal for any MW team, but that race also is the time to make a statement for NCAA at-large consideration. Otherwise, the only route to NCAA postseason play is via the automatic bid that goes to the MW Tournament champion. That tournament is “season three.” Right now, the Lobos have Fresno State on their minds.

“I’m expecting them to come out ready to play and ready to battle,” Lobo Antiesha Brown said of the Bulldogs. “It’s not going to be an easy battle. Right now, we just need to stay together as a team and focus on our goals.”

The Lobos will go at Fresno with some confidence built up with a modest three-game win streak over UTEP, Cal Poly and Northern Arizona. The Lobos also were toughened up with games against Texas A&M, DePaul, Stanford and Texas.

“Our early schedule exposed some of our weaknesses and we’ve worked on them,” said Brown.

Said Khadijah Shumpert: “We’re looking good. Every day we are doing better and achieving more. A lot of players are becoming more and more confident and that is something we were lacking.”

Confidence will be important in Fresno and in Fort Collins. These are quality Mountain West teams that know how to defend their home turf. CSU is 6-1 at home looking at a Moby Arena game on Wednesday with Boise State. The Lobos are 0-5 outside of WisePies Arena.

However, a lot of teams will leave Fresno and Fort Collins with losses. The Lobos have a chance to get a quick edge on a title run by pulling off one – or two – upsets in the opening week of MW play.

“You always want to start conference on a high note,” said Brown. “It’s always important to set a good tone.”

It’s too early to say for sure, but arguably the top three teams in the Mountain West are Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State. The Lobos open with two of them, but Sanchez isn’t too concerned with that road task.

“I think it’s a positive,” said Sanchez. “You have to go there sometimes and I like it now because of where are kids are at. There is not the Charlie Brown cloud over our head. We feel now we can kick the football.

“The momentum and the mentality are different. I think their (Lobo players) state of mind is different. Winning three in a row has helped.”

Sheedy obviously needs to be a defensive target for the Lobos on Wednesday. The 6-foot-1 forward/post is third in the conference in scoring with a 17.5 average. She hauls down 7.9 boards a game. She has reached double figures in ten games.

The Bulldogs have a star, but they also have some depth returning 11 letterwinners. Sheedy has help inside in 6-3 redshirt freshman Bego Faz Davalos, who averages 7.3 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. The Bulldogs have a couple of quick guards in 5-5 Alex Furr with a 9.2 scoring average and 5-7 Raven Fox at 8.9 points per game. Fox went off for 31 points vs. San Diego.

Fresno has a 68-59 win at Oregon and beat the Cal Riverside team (73-61) that beat UNM (70-62). Fresno also has a nice win over Cal Fullerton. The Bulldogs are expected to start three seniors and two juniors with two more seniors coming off the bench early. This is an experienced Fresno State team.

The Lobos are led in scoring by Antiesha Brown with a 13.7 average followed by Shumpert at 12.7 points per game.

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