New Mexico Lobos Men’s Basketball – In WisePies Arena/The Pit
Who/When: 6 p.m., Saturday – Wyoming (22-8, 11-6 MW) at New Mexico (14-15, 6-11 MW)
On TV: CBS Sports (Comcast 274, 838, DISH 158, DirecTV 221)
On The Radio: 770-AM KKOB/Lobo Radio Network; 1450-AM KRZY
GoLobos.com: Game Story, Complete Stats (Live Stats at www.LoboStats.com)
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
It’s probably fair to say that Lobo Coach Craig Neal has a lot of things on his mind, but it’s also probably accurate to say he has three basketball players near the forefront of that busy brain – Hugh Greenwood, Deshawn Delaney and Larry Nance Jr.
For Greenwood and Delaney, Neal is hoping Saturday night has a happy ending – a perfect ending. It’s Senior Night in WisePies Arena and Neal is hoping The Pit celebrates these soon-to-be departing Lobos by helping them beat the Wyoming Cowboys.
Nance is the physical and symbolic leader of the band of Cowboys invading The Pit looking for their first win on Bob King Floor since 2003. It’s not a huge game for the ‘Pokes as they have clinched at least a sixth-place finish in the Mountain West and have avoided the dreaded first-round at the upcoming MW tournament.
But it has been a long time since the Cowboys have had anything to celebrate in The Pit and they face a Lobo team carrying the longest losing streak the program has endured in decades. That’s a long time, too.
The Lobos might have a tad more motivation. They want to send Delaney and Greenwood out on a good note. They need momentum to carry into the Vegas Thomas & Mack. Heck, they just need to win
“It’s important to win,” said Neal. “I don’t like losing.”
The Pit crowd should be vocal and fired up on Saturday. It’s the final Pit game of the season and then you have the Greenwood and Delaney thing. Greenwood will take the center stage because he has played four years in UNM colors and he is a four-year starter looking at his 125th start on Saturday.
“It’s been a crazy journey from winning championships, to losing coaches (Steve Alford), to losing players to losing all kinds of different things,” said Greenwood. “You have to take the good with the bad, but it’s been a positive experience my whole four years here.”
Said Delaney: “It’s going to be fun but sad at the same time. I just want to finish out strong and do all I can do to get a win. I want to do it for my teammates and for my coaches.”
Senior Night is always a special deal for players, coaches, family and fans. But the No. 1 thing on a competitor’s mind isn’t flowery speeches or maybe having a rose to give to mom or dad.
It’s winning.
That brings us back to Neal’s hope that Nance doesn’t have a good time on Saturday. Often, how Nance goes, the Cowboys go. He had 21 points and 10 boards on Wyoming’s Senior Night in an impressive 76-53 Laramie win over Utah State. That’s a lot of points for the deliberate Wyoming offense to score.
They did it because they played well and shot even better – 56 percent. The Lobos need to knock that percentage down quite a bit – like under 40 percent. Stopping, or slowing down, Nance usually is a key. He beat UNM in Laramie with a steal that led to a dunk of his own.
“We’re looking at several options, several adjustments that we’ll make if he gets going,” said Neal. “One thing you have to do is keep him off the foul line.
“He is very talented. He is first team, all-league and he’s hard to guard and he does a lot of things. If he is shooting the ball well, he gives them another dimension. You have to make sure you know where he is and limit his touches, but you can’t put him on the foul line.”
The 6-foot-7 Nance tops the Wyoming scoring chart with a 15.9 average. He is their top board man with a 7.4 average and he shoots 78 percent from the foul line. Nance is 101-of-129 from the line just ahead of Josh Adams (100-of-132) in made free throws. Adams has a 12.8 scoring average. Wyoming’s Riley Grabau is shooting 95 percent from the line (74-of-78). These are the Cowboys you don’t want to foul during crunch time.
Another key with Nance is to keep him off balance with a variety of defense – or defenders. He’s difficult to push out of his game because he is talented and he is a savvy senior.
“We’ll have four different guys guard him,” said Neal. “It’s better defensively when you have size on him especially late in the shot clock.
“We’ll give them different looks and we’ll change it up and try to do some things to slow them down, but they are a slow-tempo team anyway. We have to score. They guard you. They control tempo. We need to score the ball in the key possessions down the stretch. We have to take advantage of our opportunities and convert.”
The Cowboys have a nice system. They honor possessions and they hit the boards. They are patient and disciplined on offense and try to make their opponents undisciplined and impatient on the other end of the court.
The Cowboys throw out a web of tempo and defense to get the enemy to rush things or take bad shots. The Cowboys sometimes fall into their own trap and pass up good shots in order to maintain the tempo they like. They Cowboys probably didn’t pass up many shots in scoring 76 against Utah State.
It’s difficult to envision a blowout by either team Saturday in WisePies Arena. The Cowboys and the Lobos have marched into overtime in their past three games. UNM lost 63-62 in overtime in Laramie on Jan. 24. The Lobos made some key mistakes down the stretch in order for Wyoming to escape with the win.
“I think we’ve matched up well with everybody, but we just haven’t been able to get over the hump,” said Neal. “It’s a big home game and we need to win to get some momentum going into the conference tournament. We have to take care of business on Saturday.
“But our kids haven’t stopped playing, haven’t stopped fighting.”
Editor’s Note: Richard Stevens is a former national award-winning Sports Columnist and Associate Sports Editor at The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net.