ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The New Mexico men’s basketball team ran its win streak to four with a dominant 98-71 win over Santa Clara on Saturday night at The Pit. The Lobos (7-2) shot a season-high 59.6 percent from the floor to defeat the Broncos (8-2), who entered the night ranked No. 35 in the NET.
Deyton Albury led New Mexico with 22 points and six assists, his first 20-point game as a Lobo. Tomislav Buljan had 16 points and 10 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. Uriah Tenette scored 15 points off the bench, Antonio Chol added 13 points and JT Rock scored a career-high 11 points.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Both teams got off to a strong defensive start with the game tied at 4-4 after four minutes of play. A 7-0 Lobo run gave UNM an 11-6 lead with 14:20 left in the half. SCU retook the lead, 14-12, with 11:20 left before UNM held a 19-16 lead at the midway point of the half. The UNM run extended to 12-0 to hold a 26-16 lead with 8:20 left. The Lobo lead grew to 39-21 with 4:40 to play with an 11-0 run. The Broncos used a late 8-0 run to cut the margin 43-36 in the final minute before UNM took a 45-36 lead into the break. Albury had 10 first-half points to lead the Lobos.
In the second half, Santa Clara scored the first seven points to cut the lead to 45-43 over the first three minutes. SCU closed the gap to one before a 14-3 Lobo run pushed the advantage to 61-49 with 13:15 left. UNM led 65-51 with 11:30 to play and pushed the margin to 70-55 at the midway point of the half. UNM used a 15-1 run to take a 85-56 lead with 5:15 left and led by as many as 31 over the final five minutes. A late 12-2 run by Santa Clara helped cut the lead to 21 in the final minute before UNM closed out the 27-point win.
LOBO NOTES
• The 27-point margin of victory was tied the Lobos’ largest in a game in which they were a KenPom underdog (Santa Clara was favored by two) since KenPom started doing projections in 2010-11 (tied the 85-58 win over No. 6 Nevada in 2019 when UNM was a 16-point KP underdog)
• New Mexico has now won four straight games when a KenPom underdog in The Pit (tonight, 2024-25 vs. VCU and San Diego State, 2023-24 vs. San Diego State)
• UNM has scored at least 90 points in three straight games since the 2023-24 Ball Dawgs Classic in Henderson, Nev. (scored at least 90 against Toledo, Rice and Pepperdine)
• The Lobos’ 59.6 field goal percentage was their highest against a Division I team since shooting 60.4 percent vs. New Mexico State two seasons ago
• New Mexico extended its home win streak to 17 straight, tied for the fifth-longest active streak in the nation and the longest for UNM since a 19-game home win streak spanning the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons
• The crowd of 13,614 was the largest of the season at The Pit and included the 15 millionth fan to watch a Lobo men’s basketball game in the arena since it opened in 1966
QUOTABLE
“That was a really good performance for us tonight. We played easily our most complete game of the season. We sustained our effort and our execution for the vast majority of the night. We got a great result against a really good basketball team. I thought our response to their run to start the second half was the most important sequence. I was about to call timeout, but we found Tomislav for a dunk, got a couple turnovers and pushed the lead back to double digits. It got the crowd going and we really fed off their energy tonight. Our fans made an impact tonight.” – Eric Olen
UP NEXT
The Lobos will conclude the non-conference schedule next week with a road trip to VCU on Dec. 10 before hosting Florida Gulf Coast on Dec. 14. Tickets for the FGCU game are on sale now at GoLobos.com.