MBB vs. New Mexico game thread

[PonyPride]

FINAL

UNM 84, SMU 63

Saturday at 2 PM vs. Evansville at Moody Coliseum

[SmooBoy]

Last time losing by 20+ to unranked opponent at home? Anyone?

[mustangxc]

Embarrassing performance. What a disaster! Going forward I will invest my time in supporting the women instead of the men.

[SoCal_Pony]

Last time losing by 20+ to unranked opponent at home? Anyone?

Ranked you say????, I have a couple of rankings

Sagarin had them at #172 entering this game

Lobos projected to finish tied for 8th in the MWC with Wyoming and only above San Jose St and Air Force

CP is correct, we are most likely entering a Doh phase for our program

[HarvCrimYaleBlue]

Glad I missed this one.

[ApexLobo]

Last time losing by 20+ to unranked opponent at home? Anyone?

Ranked you say????, I have a couple of rankings

Sagarin had them at #172 entering this game

Lobos projected to finish tied for 8th in the MWC with Wyoming and only above San Jose St and Air Force

CP is correct, we are most likely entering a Doh phase for our program

Greetings Mustangs. Sorry, I had to create an account to correct a few things.

The Lobos were picked to finish 5th in the MWC, not 8th. Wyoming was picked to finish 2nd, not 8th. You're looking at last year's preseason poll for the MWC. Also, Sagarin weights early rankings heavily on last year's performance. We are a vastly different team from last year. We had zero inside game last year, and added two extremely experienced D1 big men transfers in the off-season, both of whom were close to getting double-doubles tonight against SMU (one had 18/9, the other had 15/8). Plus we added the California Mr. Basketball who had 7 assists for us tonight.

We are most assuredly much, much better than the #172 team in the country, and the numbers will prove that as the season goes on. Right now, this is probably at least a top-75 team, with the potential to be better than that.

I wouldn't feel too badly about this loss. Your roster turned over quite a bit, and you lost to a very good, experienced basketball team that will likely finish in the top 4 in the Mountain West and win 20+ games. Good game tonight, and good luck in the AAC.

[PonyPride]

Welcome to PonyFans.com, ApexLobo, and thanks for the updates/clarifications.
Best of luck the rest of the way.

[SoCal_Pony]

you are correct Apex, i searched MWC projections and 21-22 came up first, and yeah, i realize it’s early for Sagarin (i commented on that fact earlier in this thread).

I’m not one to draw conclusions based on just 1 game, but i think SMU is going to really struggle this season due to their lack of scorers. We shall see, but i am expecting a losing season, for awhile i wondered if we could reach ,500 based on some cupcake OOC opponents.

We most definitely need an infusion of talent. This team, as constructed, is not capable of competing for an AAC championship nor making the NCAA tourney.

[tristatecoog]

Unfortunately had to watch on the Plus and listen to Rich on 770. Wow, Rich has been calling SMU games since 2001.

Announcers said that Foster is maybe the second best shooter on the team. He is really big and will be fun to watch for the next few years. Lanier has added some strong talent (like Williamson) but it will clearly take time to gel.

Believe I heard that UNM returns all its starters and radio announcers called Richard Pitino a great coach. Ha! "Great coaches (like RP) make defensive adjustments after timeouts." The Lobos looked quite good. Maybe an NIT team?

[EastStang]

Talent wins games for sure, but things like defense, rebounding and ball security are things that can be taught. You should get 90-95% of defensive end rebounds. Only those truly bricked shots that bounce 15 feet out are forgivable. On the offensive side, center and one forward should crash the boards. Defense should be taught and enforced with pine time if you don't play defense. If a guy beats you okay, but make him work. Turnovers. You want creativity, but you can teach how to avoid traps, how to avoid telegraphing passes, and how to pass selectively.

[JasonB]

I would describe it as an incredibly immature performance. Missed a lot of easy shots early, and then when the game started to get away, forced a lot of ugly quick shots on ugly, quick possessions. Bad turnovers. Defensively, did not block out at all and the bigs off the bench don't defend well at all.

I still think we are going to be okay this year, but while we have size, we lack athleticism. I just hope we clean things up by the xmas tourney.

NM is good.

[geezerdonk]

TCU and A&M before Christmas will be brutal humiliations.
But oh boy wait until Houston gets hold of them.
Two Jack Pardee basketball style coming right up.