Stevens: Lobos vs. Falcons — Chess anyone? - New Mexico Lobos

February 03, 2015

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

Who/When: 7 p.m., Wednesday – New Mexico Lobos (14-7, 6-3 MW) at Air Force (9-12, 2-8 MW)

On TV: ROOT Sports (Comcast 261/814, DISH 414, DirecTV 683)

On The Radio: 770-AM KKOB/Lobo Radio Network with Robert Portnoy and Hunter Greene

GoLobos.com: Game Story, Complete Stats (Live Stats at www.LoboStats.com)

By Richard Stevens — Senior Writer/GoLobos.com

The Air Force Falcons will see a Lobo zone on Wednesday – and a Lobo man-to-man – and the Lobo zone again – but probably a lot of zone.

But which zone will the Falcons see and when will Lobo Coach Craig Neal throw it at them. And when will this crafty Lobo coach change things up?

Ditto for the Falcons in what they likely will throw at the Lobos.

For sure, Air Force will throw a zone at the Lobos. But will the Falcons also toss in a bit of man-to-man and will they try to surprise the Lobos with a variety of presses.

“It’s a guessing game; a chess match and sometimes you don’t guess right,” said Lobo Coach Craig Neal.

The key when the New Mexico Lobos meet the Air Force Falcons Wednesday night in Clune Arena is to be prepared for everything the Falcons might throw at the Lobos – and then execute.

Oh yeah – and make some shots.

The two teams stayed in a zone most of the game in UNM’s 60-48 win on Jan. 14 in WisePies Arena. The Falcons used a 3-2 zone, but Neal does not expect to see that 100 percent of the time in Clune Arena.

“I think they are going to change up a lot,” said Neal. “I think they’ll come at us with different looks. I don’t think they’ll just play a 3-2 zone like they did the last time. People that play us a zone, they just want to beg us to shoot 3-point shots.

“I think they’ll try to keep us off balance because people still think we have an inexperienced team.”

If you can confuse the first-year Lobos with a variety of defenses, it probably will help your cause on the scoreboard. The bulk of the New Mexico experience comes from seniors Deshawn Delaney and Hugh Greenwood. The rest of the Lobos are pretty green.

It’s that Lobo youth that also convinced Neal to go zone when the Falcons flew into The Pit. He said the zone limited Air Force’s ability to use back-cuts to produce easy baskets. It also lessened the younger Lobos’ responsibilities on defense.

“The bottom line is these guys (first-year Lobos) have never seen that (Princeton offense),” said Neal. “I don’t know of any high school team that runs a Princeton offense. It’s ‘see how fast we can shoot it’ (in high school).

“That’s why we play the zone because they are not ready to handle (man-to-man responsibilities) yet.”

So, in evaluating the chess match to be played Wednesday at Air Force, you have to figure the Falcons have been calculating a few more plays to run against the UNM zone.

Which is why Neal plans to throw some other stuff at the Falcons, but this strategy is not uncommon for Neal’s Lobos.

“It’s because we change on people,” said Neal of his Lobos’ success on defense. “If you call a timeout to draw up a play, they have to guess what I’m going to do. That’s not easy. We’ve made a lot of switches and I think it has helped us.

“That’s not easy when I have to do it (guess) and people do it to us a lot.”

The enemy does it a lot to Neal’s Lobos hoping to get the young Lobos to make a mistake – or maybe take a bad shot by not being patient on offense.

The Lobos will be looking at the same Air Force Princeton offense in Colorado Springs – but with one significant difference. The Falcons’ Max Yon is expected to return to the floor after missing the past nine Air Force games. The 6-4 guard had five straight double-digit games before taking leave of the team for personal reasons. He hit 25 point vs. Colorado State in his last game. He also has scored 23 vs. Army and 25 vs. Texas Tech.

“That gives them definitely one of the top players in the league back,” said Neal. “We’ll prepare for that. He is probably their best offensive weapon, but you prepare for their system more than you prepare for individual players.”

The Princeton offense – at its best – is more efficient against a man-to-man defense when the Falcons can screen, back-cut and pop off screens for jumpers or 3-pointers. Against a zone, the back-cuts are not there as often and there is a need for the Falcons to shoot well over the zone.

Max Yon could come in handy with these long-range shots. He averaged 16.5 point in the four MW games in which he has played and 15.3 points in 15 games overall.

The Lobos still have not yielded more than 70 points in a game and like to keep the score down. The Falcons don’t mind a low-scoring affair averaging 66.8 points on offense. The Falcons average 48 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range. Those percentages were 35 percent and 27 percent in The Pit.

The Falcons need to do better if they plan to improve on their record against UNM. Air Force has lost 15 of its past 16 games vs. the Lobos.

Of course, the Falcons do have a sweet memory to carry into Wednesday’s game. Air Force beat UNM 89-88 last March in Clune Arena. The Lobos need to win to keep pace with the front runners in the Mountain West chase, but also do not need a loss to Air Force on their postseason resume.

“Every game the last half of the season has NCAA implications,” said Neal.

New Mexico Lobos 2014-15 Roster

No.