New Mexico
(24-6, 10-4 MWC)
will be the 2-seed going into next week’s Mountain West
Conference basketball
tournament after San Diego St. survived an upset bid at TCU
Saturday night,
winning 98-92 in overtime to claim the 1-seed and a share of the
MWC
championship.
UNM will face 7-seed Air Force on Thursday night at 6 p.m. in
the Thomas &
Mack Center in Las Vegas. The game will be televised on The Mtn.
On Saturday
afternoon, the
Lobos found themselves in a dogfight with Boise St. after coming
out cold on
offense and after leading at halftime, found themselves having
to fight back
again in the second half before pulling away late.
Gordon score a
career-high
30 points on 11-of-15 shooting to lead all scorers and pulled in
12 rebounds
for his 15th double-double of the season while
Greenwood scored 15
points and pulled down 5 rebounds. Sophomore guard Kendall Williams added nine
points and seven rebounds. As UNM got scoring from all 10
players who checked
in.
Derrick Marks
scored 17 and
Ryan Watkins added 16 off the bench for Boise St.
“I thought we
played well,
we played hard and we played a team that shot the ball well and
rebounded the
ball well against us,” said Alford. “They came in with a very
good game plan
and they played us hard. That is what this league is, but to
pull away in the
end, that was the key.”
The Lobos
trailed by as much
as nine in the first half before making a pair of surges to get
back in the
game. UNM took back the lead on a trey by Greenwood that made
the score 27-25
at the 5:42 mark. Boise’s Derrick Marks answered with a trey to
take a
momentary 29-28 lead but New Mexico responded with a 7-2 run to
finish the half
and take a 35-30 lead into the break.
The Lobos
started strong in
the second half and pushed the lead to 43-35 as Gordon scored
UNM’s first six
points of the half. UNM looked to be asserting control of the
game but Boise
responded 13-2 run as UNM went 1-of-6 from the field. Sophomore
guard Kendall
Williams ended the run with a trey to tie game at 48-48 with
9:34 left in the
game.
Boise St.
reeled off four
points to push the lead to 52-48 but UNM again surged. Gordon
and Greenwood
provided the spark as Gordon converted an old-fashioned
three-point play with a
lay-up followed by the free throw and Greenwood went 1-of-2 on
free throws then
on the next possession stole the ball from BSU’s Jeff Elorriaga
and drove the
length of the court for a lay up to again tie the game at 54-54
with 6:12 left.
UNM outscored
the Broncos
9-2 over the next three minutes to take a 63-56 lead. BSU cut
the lead to 63-58
on a pair of free throws by Thomas Bropleh but the Lobos
outscored the Broncos
13-3 the rest of the way. Gordon put the dagger into BSU with a
three-pointer
from the top of the key with 29 seconds left in the game to end
the scoring.
“That shot was
just an
end-of-game situation where I wasn’t going to lose the game or
the momentum was
going to swing in the other direction,” said Gordon. “The
coaches told me no
and I said yes and it just worked out.”
Two keys to the
game were
points off of turnovers and fast break points. UNM scored 19
points off of 12
turnovers. The Lobos committed just five turnovers – a season
low. New Mexico
also took advantage of transition points, outscoring BSU 10-2 on
fast breaks.
The Broncos out
did UNM at
the free throw line, going 15-of-16 compared to the Lobos’
16-of-23. But New
Mexico shot just over 54.2% (26-of-48) wile Boise only shot
40.8% (20-of-49).
The Lobos also heated up from the three point line in the second
half, hitting
4-of-8 – all four coming at crucial moments.
The Lobos
overcame their
largest deficit of the season, nine points, against Boise.
Gordon praised his
team for its tough-mindedness when it fell behind Saturday.
“I think the
team really
builds on each other,” said Gordon. “When you face adversity it
can go two
ways: people start arguing and it goes south or people support
each other and
make sure that whatever their role is they play it to the best
of their
abilities and they’re there to pick other people up.”
Alford praised
Boise St.’s
coaching staff after the win.
“They had a
great game
plan,” said Alford. “They obviously wanted to slow it down,
spread us, play
four guards and we played two bigs and in the last ten minutes
to go to match
them four guard to four guard. I thought that was the difference
and it speaks
volumes again to the unselfishness of guys like A.J. Hardeman, who
didn’t get as
many minutes as he does usually because we had to go with four
guards.“
Alford
continued, “I thought
we made some really big plays and a lot of pressure situations.
When you’re
trying to win a championship and the team you’re playing has you
down five
inside ten (minutes) that pressure gets even tighter. We haven’t
had a lot of
close ones and that really helped our guys to be able to finish
a team off and
do it the way we did it.”
Alford said
that though he
emphasizes regular season championships, that winning the league
tournament “comes
down to who
shoots the ball well.”
“The league
championship
means an awful lot to us because it is a two month body of
work,” Alford said.
“Regardless of who we play in Vegas next week, it is a team we
have played
before and they know us and we know them. It is about guarding
and hoping you
make some shots.”