New Mexico (23-6, 9-4 MWC)
is tied with San Diego St. with a 9-4 league record after Colorado
St. beat
UNLV 66-59 in Ft. Collins, Colo. Wednesday night. SDSU plays at
TCU Saturday in
Ft. Worth, Texas where the Horned Frogs are undefeated in
conference play this
season. CSU finished league play with a perfect 7-0 record at home
with its win
over the Rebels.
Against Air Force, UNM got a
break through performance from freshman point guard Hugh Greenwood, who scored
a game-high 22 points along with six rebounds, and the 17th
double-double of the season from senior Drew Gordon, who scored
17 points and
pulled down 11 rebounds.
“I am extremely
proud of our
basketball team,” said head coach Steve Alford. “We didn’t play
a lot of good
basketball on the road last week and we knew that was going to
be a difficult
road trip to begin with. We wanted to get back home and get back
to playing at
the level that we had been playing at.
I thought that tonight we did an awful lot of good
things; we shared the
basketball, we didn’t turn the ball over, we dominated the glass
and I thought
our defense was back to being that stingy defense that we had
been seeing. I’m
extremely pleased and our guys know that the job is not done
yet. We are one
game away and 40 minutes away from getting another championship.
The locker
room is very excited about Saturday.”
Air Force
(13-14, 3-10) held
a 3-2 lead seconds into the game but UNM took the lead for good
on the next
possession after a jumper by Gordon. Gordon scored six points
over the next six
minutes as the Lobos outscored the Flacons 12-4 to take a 16-6
lead. Then
leading 21-11 at the 9:16 mark, New Mexico went on an 8-0 run
powered primarily
by treys from Greenwood and Phillip McDonald. UNM pushed the
lead to 33-14 on
another Gordon dunk with 2:38 left in the half. The Lobos led
40-23 at
halftime.
“It was a rough
road week,”
said Gordon after the game. “We lost to TCU and they were a good
team. They
have not lost at home. We knew it was going to be a fight going
in against TCU
and we came out on the losing side. We had to take a look at
what was going
wrong and what was going right. We practiced on those things and
won this
game.”
UNM held Air
Force to just
8-of-27 shooting in the first half and 4-of-13 shooting form the
three point
line while hitting 55% (16-of-29) of it’s own shots. The Lobos
hit just 4-of-13
on treys but made up for it by outscoring AFA in 20-8 in the
paint in the half.
“I think Drew
was going to
be a big key for us (early on) because we had worked for two
days on getting
the ball inside,” said Alford. ” This game mirrored game one in
that we were
able to establish inside, establish ourselves defensively and we
got our
transition game going. I thought we did that in both games and
that was going
to be a key in this game because they had been playing better.”
Greenwood came
out in the
second half and went five-of-five, hitting four three-pointers
to help UNM push
the lead to 54-29 with 15:33 left in the game.
The Australian
was shooting
so well, the Pit crowd was comically encouraging him to shoot
from well beyond
NBA three-point range.
“It was funny,”
said
Greenwood. “I took a step over half-court and they are telling
me to shoot it.
I did have one shot there and I fell short. The teammates kept
giving me the
ball. Kendall Williams kept calling plays for me. That is the
leadership
aspect. That is what he brings to this group. If he tells me to
shoot, I will
shoot.”
The Lobos
pushed the lead
all the way to 79-40 with just under 5:28 left in the game and
then went on
cruise control. The game was so under control that the Pit crowd
began chanting
for walk-on Chris Perez at the five-minute mark. Perez would
enter the game
with just over a minute left, scoring one point on a free throw.
UNM finished
the game
shooting 29-of-49 (49.2%) and 41.4% (12-of-29) on treys after
shooting a
stellar 8-of-16 (50%) from beyond the arc in the second half. The Lobos outscored
the Falcons 28-18
in the lane and had their bench outscore AFA 31-13. New Mexico
also finished
with almost a 3-to-1 assist to turnover ratio with 21 assists
and only seven
turnovers – a welcomed improvement over the last two MWC games.
Gordon said
Saturday’s game
against Boise State is a big game for him and UNM – both because
it’s Senior
Day as well as a chance for the Lobos to grab at least a share
of the Mountain
West regular season title.
“Fortunately,
we are playing
for a ring,” Gordon said. “This is big. It is a great thing for
the freshman
and also the sophomores who did not get one last year. It is
definitely
bitter-sweet. This place has treated me with the utmost respect
and I had good
times and bad times in here. It is going to be rough saying
goodbye but I am
happy to look forward to the future.”