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| NEW MEXICO LOBOS 23-5 (13-4 MW) |
WYOMING COWGIRLS 20-6 (13-4 MW) |
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Thursday, March 7 | 7 p.m. |
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Tipping Off
The final game of the 2018-19 regular season has arrived as the University of New Mexico and University of Wyoming women’s basketball teams are set to square off inside Dreamstyle Arena – The Pit on Thursday night. The regular season finale figures to be a good one as the Lobos and Cowgirls are playing for a chance to be the No. 2-seed in the upcoming Mountain West Tournament.
Boise State secured the regular season title and top-seed outright with a 70-66 win over UNM on Monday. The loss for the Lobos dropped them to 13-4 in league play. The Cowgirls, conversely, had little trouble in their Monday night contest cruising past San Jose State, 85-56 to improve to 13-4 in MW play.
Both of those results this past Monday set up the stakes at hand for the winner on Thursday night. The winner will be the No. 2-seed and play at 6 p.m. (PT) on Monday, March 11 against the winner of the No. 7-seed and No. 10-seed. The losing team can do no lower than the No. 3-seed and will play at 8:30 p.m. (PT) on March 11 against the winner of the No. 6-seed and the No. 11-seed. This will be the second meeting this season between the two teams with the Lobos coming away with a 78-75 road win at Wyoming back on January 19.
Senior Night
The final regular season game of the 2018-19 season for the Lobos is also the final home game as well and prior to tip-off against Wyoming, the four seniors on this year’s team will be honored with a brief ceremony. The four seniors that will be honored this season are Emily Lines, Nike McClure, Erica Moore and Jaisa Nunn.
Battle in Boise
An unbalanced Mountain West schedule set the stage for an early March matchup between New Mexico and Boise State. The lone scheduled meeting in the 2018-19 regular season between the Lobos and Broncos could not have had higher stakes with the regular season title hanging in the balance. A win for the Broncos gave them the crown out-right while the Lobos needed a win to keep their chances alive heading into the final regular season game.
As it played out, The Battle in Boise lived up to its billing as the game was a tight back-and-forth affair throughout. With five lead changes and four tie scores, the largest lead for either team was just single digits. The Broncos would emerge with a 70-66 win on their home court to clinch the regular season crown.
Lobos Distribute & Shoot Well at CSU
In the game against Colorado State, the Lobos employed an all-around team effort and particularly shined in distributing the ball and shooting from long range. For the third-straight game and fifth time this season, the Lobos had at least 20 assists, ending with 23. The Lobos also buried 12 three-pointers for the second-straight time to tie their season-high in that category.
On the assist front, Jaedyn De La Cerda, Jayla Everett and Aisia Robertson all had at least six dimes with Everett’s seven pacing the team. From three-point range, the Lobos had four players with
multiple makes from distance. Everett, Robertson and Ahlise Hurst combined for nine of the makes as each had a trio of trifectas against the Rams.
20-20 Vision
With their win against San Jose State on February 13, the Lobos have reached the 20-win mark for the second-straight season. It is the first consecutive 20-win campaigns for the program since 2007-08 – 2008-09. It is also the eighth time in the 11-year coaching career for Mike Bradbury that his team has won at least 20 games in a season.
#PackingThePit
Dreamstyle Arena – The Pit is one of the legendary venues for Division I college basketball in the country, not just for men’s but also for women’s. In the 20th year of the Mountain West, the UNM women’s basketball team has led the league and ranked in the Top-20 nationally in attendance each year. The 2018-19 season has been no different. Currently, the Lobos are the top drawing team in the league and rank 18th nationally at average of 5,201 fans a game. During a two-game stretch against Fresno State and Utah State, the Lobos brought in a total of 14,384 fans. The first of those games saw 8,068 fans and was their highest attendance since 2015.
Lobos Loading up on MW Player of Week
Earlier this season, the Lobos had a stranglehold on Mountain West Player of the Week as three out of the first four weeks were Lobos that earned the award. Additionally, the awards came in succession beginning with Jaisa Nunn (11/19). Aisia Robertson (11/26) followed the next week and Ahlise Hurst (12/3) capped the three-week run. It was the second time in as many seasons that the Lobos had three-consecutive MW Player of the Week honors.
UNM did not receive another weekly honor the next seven weeks, but freshman Jayla Everett became the fourth Lobo to earn MW Player of the Week for the final week of January. A week after that,
Nunn repeated as league player of the week, giving the Lobos five this season.
Balanced Scoring
The Lobos have played 28 games this season and have shown that their offensive production can come from a number of different places on any given game. Thus far, the Lobos have had six different leading corers. Two of those have been efforts off the bench by Jaedyn De La Cerda and Madi Washington. An even more impressive note on the balanced scoring is the fact that the Lobos have had the same leading scorer in consecutive games just five times this year. The first two instances were accomplished by Aisia Robertson while the last three have been done by Jaisa Nunn.
Assists by Aisia
In 28 games, redshirt junior Aisia Robertson has been an assist machine. With 188 total assists currently, Robertson has not had fewer than four dimes all but one time this season, and against Oklahoma, Robertson set a new single-game record with 16 assists. Her assists per game are currently seventh in NCAA DI while her total assists are ranked seventh.
Block Party Hosted By McClure
Length and athleticism were projected to be a newfound strength of the 2018-19 Lobos and thus far, senior transfer Nike McClure has exemplified that on the court. In the season-opener against Texas State, McClure blocked six shots on her own as the Lobos would end the night with a new school-record 16. Against Oklahoma, McClure swatted nine shot attempts by the Sooners to set a new single-game high for herself as a Lobo. McClure’s 63 total blocked shots is currently 32nd in DI, while her 2.3 blocks per game is 29th in the country. As a team, the Lobos are sixth in the country in blocked shots per game.
Nunn’s Climb Up the All-Time Scoring List
Senior center Jaisa Nunn became the 22nd player in school history to score 1,000-career points at the end of her junior season. She ended that year 19th on the all-time scoring list. In her senior season, Nunn has the chance to climb the ranks even higher. She is currently 7th with 1,494 points.
Cleaning the Glass
Already a 1,000-point career scorer and climbing up the all-time ranks at UNM, Jaisa Nunn is also climbing the all-time list for rebounding at UNM. The program record for the most rebounds in a career is 982 held by Carol Moreland. Nunn currently ranks 2nd with 908. Now that she has eclipsed 900 rebounds, Nunn is the only Lobo in program history and just the 6th in MW history as well to have over 1,000 career points and over 900 career rebounds.