ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The University of New Mexico men’s basketball team dropped a home contest to Colorado State Tuesday night, 68-56. The Lobos are now 16-12 on the year and 9-7 in the Mountain West.
“We ran into a team that is playing extremely well,” said head coach Craig Neal. “You’ve got to give them (Colorado State) credit. They played harder. We’ll keep working and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”
Elijah Brown led the Lobos with 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting. He was 4-of-7 from the three but did not shoot a free throw attempt for the first time in his Lobo career. He led the Lobos with six rebounds and finished with two assists.
Two other Lobos finished in double figures in Obij Aget and Sam Logwood. Logwood finished with 11 points, while Aget finished with 10. Logwood added five rebounds, one assist and a steal. Aget finished with three rebounds and a block.
It was a back-and-forth game to start the half. The Lobos took the lead twice after a Logwood dunk at the 10:59 mark and a layup from Aget with 6:08 left in the first half. Those were the only two leads of the game for the Lobos.
Colorado State went on a 7-0 run that retook the lead with four minutes left to go until hafltime. The Rams called a timeout and held the Lobos to just five points the rest of the half and scored nine of their own to take a 36-29 lead.
In the second half, the Lobos came out and held CSU to a little over two and half minutes without a score, which allowed the Lobos to come within three after a Logwood three. The Rams went on another run, this time an 8-0 run that forced a UNM timeout.
“I think our guys were playing hard,” Neal said. “… but we just couldn’t get it over the hump. We had opportunities.”
Elijah answered out of the timeout with a three at the 10:42 mark but the offense didn’t pick up much the rest of the game. The Lobos came within seven with a minute to go but CSU made 5-of-6 free throws to secure the victory.
“We just had a hard time scoring the ball. When we don’t do that, we don’t play with the pace that we’re capable of. We’re going to keep working and keep going back to the drawing board but that was a perfect example of us not being able to score and get to the line.”
For the game, the Lobos did hold the Rams to just 27.3 percent shooting (6-22). The Lobos were 42 percent (21-50) from the field, 41.2 percent (7-17) from the three and 58.3 percent (7-12) from the four line.
The Lobos will move on to Wyoming Saturday afternoon as they travel to Laramie to take on the Cowboys. That game is set for 4 p.m. MT and will air on ESPN3.