Short-handed Lobos fall at Colorado State

Geoff Grammer, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
·5 min read

Mar. 4—With little left to play for but pride, the Lobos who were in Fort Collins, Colo., on Wednesday night did nothing to hang their heads about.

Wrapping up a historically bad regular season in the standings — one in which fourth-year head coach Paul Weir announced his resignation on Friday — a UNM men's basketball roster playing with just six scholarship players and four walk-ons managed to post the team's second-highest point total of the season against a Division I opponent in an 87-73 loss to NCAA Tournament hopeful Colorado State in Moby Arena.

The loss secures for the Lobos (6-15, 2-15 Mountain West) the 11 seed in next week's 11-team Mountain West Tournament — the first time the program will finish alone in last place in any conference since the 1957-58 season in which UNM went 0-14 (3-21 overall) and was alone in 8th place in the Skyline Conference.

Four Lobo scholarship players who played in last week's games against Air Force prior to Weir's resignation — 6-foot-9 forward Bayron Matos, 6-10 Valdir Manuel, 6-8 Rod Brown and 6-4 Kurt Wegscheider — all missed practices earlier this week and didn't make the trip to Colorado for Wednesday's make-up game against the Rams (17-4, 14-3 MWC). Walk-on Jordan Arroyo also did not make the trip, but his situation is unrelated to the other four players.

What exactly that situation is (i.e. are they hurt, being disciplined, contemplating quitting the team, etc.) is something UNM has chosen thus far not to elaborate on.

"I'm giving certain players on our team some space to process what's going on," said Lobos coach Paul Weir, who is coaching the team through next week's conference tournament. "I'm hopeful that they will return again this season. But right now, our focus and our energy has been on the guys that were on this trip. I'm grateful to have them I'm incredibly thankful for their effort tonight, their commitment to me and our program."

After a brief statement on those who weren't there, Weir handed off his postgame conference to assistant Ralph Davis and let assistant Dan McHale handle the school's postgame radio interview.

Favored by 18.5 points, the Rams entered the game hoping to secure the program's first-ever Mountain West championship (San Diego State's win late Wednesday brought an end to that and the Rams now are hoping to finish as the No. 2 seed in the MWC Tournament). They looked the part of NCAA Tournament hopefuls early, jumping out to an 11-2 lead and later 18-8 in the first six minutes of the game.

But the Lobos managed a 12-2 run to tie the game at 20-20 with 10:41 left in the half — a feel-good run that included just about everyone in a UNM jersey: A Makuach Maluach to Emmanual Kuac alley-oop, a Jeremiah Francis layup, an Isaiah Marin 3-pointer, walk-on Eloy Medina's first points of the season on a 3-pointer and a Saquan Singleton bucket off a walk-on Logan Padgett assist.

Medina (6 points on 2-of-3 3-point shooting in nine minutes) and Padgett (8 points on 3-4 shooting in 11 minutes) were two of four walk-ons who played regular minutes in a game that even saw freshman guard Daniel Headdings regularly matched up on defense with 252-pound bruising power forward David Roddy — a Mountain West Player of the Year candidate who finished one assist shy of a triple double (12 points, 14 rebounds, 9 assists).

CSU did go on runs and led by as many as 21 in the second half, but couldn't quite rest the starters as much as desired in a game they needed to win by 20- to 30-points to move the needle in their favor in the computer rankings that help decide at-large berths for the NCAA Tournament.

Instead, the Lobos kept scrapping together mini-runs.

Senior Makuach Maluach had 20 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore point guard Jeremiah Francis had 10 points four assists and one turnovers and the Lobos had 20 assists and just eight turnovers while scoring 73 points — one shy of the 74 they scored in losses to Nevada and in overtime to Wyoming for season-highs against DI opponents.

"I think they're doing a tremendous job of taking care of business," Davis said when asked how the staff and players are handling the news of the past week. "... They're going out there still trying to win games, as you saw tonight, for coach (Weir). It's still his program until the season's over with. So, from there, we're just trying to do the best we can, and I think they've done an admirable job of coming out here and try to play as hard as they can for him and for themselves too."

BOX SCORE: Colorado State 87, New Mexico 73

UP NEXT: Mountain West Tournament March 10-13. UNM will be the No. 11 seed and play the No. 6 seed (not yet determined) Wednesday at 5 p.m. MT (4 p.m. local tip time in Las Vegas, Nev.) in the first round of the 11-team tournament.