New Mexico Lobos Women’s Basketball – On The Mountain West Road
Fresno State 71, New Mexico 65
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
If you fall into a 19-point hole on the Mountain West road, you probably won’t pull yourself out of that crevice.
You do it twice, you are in big trouble.
The New Mexico Lobos trailed 36-17 at the half and 62-43 with 8:12 to play and even a furious rally could not stop the Lobos from dropping their 71-65 Mountain West opener at Fresno State on Wednesday.
“We can’t wait to have second-half comebacks,” said coach Yvonne Sanchez. “We have to play a complete game especially on the road. When you don’t play a complete game, this is what happens.
“We didn’t get good performances from Bryce (Owens), Khadijah (Shumpert) or Tiesh (Antiesha Brown) in the first half and we need that from our upperclassmen.”
As a team, the Lobos obviously waited too long to up their intensity and so did a few Lobo players. Brown paced UNM with 20 points, but only scored two points in the first half. Owens scored 12 points (nine in the second half) and Shumpert scored 12 points before leaving the floor with an ankle injury.
Shumpert was on crutches at the game’s end.
“We just had a terrible first half. It’s unfortunate,” said Sanchez. “There is no excuse for the way we played in the first half.”
The Lobos also got 13 points from Cherise Beynon which handed UNM four players in double digit scoring. The Bulldogs got double figures from Alex Sheedy with 16 points and Shauqunna Collins added 12 points. Fresno also had five players with seven points or more.
The Lobos came out of the halftime break down 19, cut that hole to 15 points, and Fresno State quickly called a timeout trying to steal the momentum back from UNM. The Lobos continued their run and cut Fresno’s lead to 42-31 – 11 points.
UNM was still down by 11 at 48-37 before the Bulldogs regrouped and pulled back into a 62-43 lead. The Lobos were again down by 19 points.
The Lobos threw out another run. A Beynon trey pulled the Lobos to 62-49 – down 13. Beynon launched from long range again to cut UNM’s gap to 62-52. Fresno State called a timeout. The Lobos played with ferocious desperation in the final minutes to make the eventual score respectable, but this Fresno State win was never really in jeopardy. Brown hit a jumper with 50 ticks to play to form the 71-65 final.
“We had a mountain to climb and we climbed it,” said Sanchez. “It’s a disappointing loss because of the first half. We didn’t’ respond the way we had been responding. We have to get better and we have to put complete games together. I really thought going into this one we could get this win.”
The Lobos shot 45 percent from the floor and Fresno hit at a 56 percent clip. UNM shot 32 percent in the first half while falling into that 19-point hole. The Bulldogs won the rebound battle 32-28 and had 14 assists to nine for UNM.
Fresno State also outscored UNM in the paint 43-30. “We backed down,” said Sanchez. “We let Sheedy do whatever she wanted. We just didn’t defend her. You have to give her credit, but we have to get better at post defense.”
The Lobos will take their 0-1 Mountain West record to Colorado State on Saturday. The Rams won the MW regular-season crown in 2014 and joined Boise State as the preseason pick to win the 2015 title. The Broncos defeated CSU 75-65 in Boise, Idaho, earlier Wednesday.
First Half: Fresno State 36, New Mexico 17
The Lobos were in pretty good shape in the first half after a Bryce Owens’ trey had the Lobos down by a single point at 13-12. It went downhill pretty quickly from there. Owens and Brown didn’t score again until the second half.
An 11-0 Fresno State run made it 24-12 and the Bulldogs continued to pull away eventually forming their 19-point halftime bulge.
The Lobos got five points from Shumpert in the first half and four more points from Jayda Bovero. Antiesha Brown had a tough first half shooting 1-of-7 from the floor and scoring only two points. Brown and Shumpert also spent too much time on the bench after quickly picking up two fouls.
“Those two are our leaders and they have to be smarter than that,” said Sanchez of the fouls. “They are upperclassmen and they have to smarter and not pick up two quick fouls.”
UNM shot 32 percent from the floor in the half while Fresno State sizzled at a 54 percent rate. Fresno went 4-of-7 from 3-point range. The Bulldogs won the backboard battle with 17 rebounds to 14 for the Lobos. Fresno had eight assists and UNM had three assists.
Another hurtful stat for the Lobos was giving up 13 turnovers to nine for the home team.