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| NEW MEXICO LOBOS 21-4 (11-3 MW) |
COLORADO STATE RAMS 8-18 (2-13 MW) |
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Saturday, March 2 | 2 p.m. |
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Tipping Off
The University of New Mexico begins its final road trip of the regular season as they are set to travel to Fort Collins, Colo. to take on Colorado State this coming Saturday afternoon. The game with the Rams is the second-to-last road game for the Lobos with their final contest away from Dreamstyle Arena coming on Monday night at league-leading Boise State.
The Lobos enter their game with CSU on a roll, having won their last two games and also setting a program scoring record in their last game as they hung 110 points at home against San Jose State. The Rams are trending in the opposite direction having lost their last six games, but in their most-recent game, CSU took Boise State to overtime before the Broncos came away with a nine-point victory.
The game on Saturday will feature differing offensive styles as the Lobos have the league’s top scoring offense at 76.9 ppg while the Rams have the lowest scoring offense in the league at 54.7 ppg. The Lobos also possess the best scoring margin in the league at +13.2 ppg while the Rams have ninth scoring margin at -5.2 ppg. This will be the second meeting this season between the two teams with the Lobos claiming the initial contest by a score of 70-58 in Albuquerque back on January 12.
Lobos Top Century Mark in Rout of SJSU
Scoring records of any kind were not safe in the Lobos most-recent game against San Jose State. The Lobos would beat the Spartans 110- 72 and the 110 points set an overall program record for points in a game. The previous record was 107 set last year against Northern New Mexico. It was the first time this season that the Lobos had scored 90 or more points in a game. A year ago, that mark was achieved 10 times
De La Cerda Sets Bench Scoring Record
In the game against SJSU, sophomore Jaedyn De La Cerda set a single-game record for most points off the bench with 31. The previous mark was 30 by Jordan Adams against Utah (Feb. 3, 2000). Fueling De La Cerda’s record was the three-ball as she hit seven in the game. The seven makes ties for four-most in a game
Runaway 4th Quarter vs. Aggies
The first three quarters of the Lobos most-recent game against Utah State were closely played with neither team having a lead larger than seven points. That all changed in the fourth quarter, however, as the Lobos dominated the final period, out-scoring the Aggies 19-6 overall. Through the first seven minutes of the period, the Lobos out-scored the Aggies 17-2 to give UNM their largest lead of the game at 20 points, 72-52, with 2:50 left on the clock. The rest of the game, the Aggies were only able to trim the deficit down to 16 points before the Lobos ended with an 18-point margin of victory.
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 14th 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 26 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 scorers. 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 26 games, redshirt junior Aisia Robertson has been an assist machine. With 181 total assists currently, Robertson has not had fewer than four dimes in a game, and against Oklahoma, Robertson
set a new single-game record with 16 assists. Her assists per game are currently fifth 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 60 total blocked shots is currently 31st in DI, while her 2.3 blocks per game is 29th in the country. As a team, the Lobos are fourth 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 1,469 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 892. Now that she has eclipsed 800 rebounds, Nunn is one of three players all-time with over 1,000-career points and 800-career rebounds.