Lobos come out flat on the road as Utah State wins
Coach Neal says his players lacked passion, suffered possible letdown
LOGAN, Utah — The New Mexico Lobos have now allowed one bad call Saturday in San Diego to lead to two losses. So far. Clearly out of sync from opening tip to final buzzer, and showing very little passion throughout, UNM dropped its second-consecutive Mountain West road game, 80-72, to the Utah State Aggies on Tuesday night in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
“I think what happened tonight was their team played harder than mine,” Lobos coach Craig Neal said. “I don’t know if it was a letdown (from the San Diego State loss on Saturday), or what happened, but we have to figure it out.”
A calm postgame interview with the Journal late Tuesday was a far cry from the rant Neal had in the team locker room, overheard by numerous Utah-based media located in a room that, unbeknownst to the Lobos (14-10, 7-4 MWC), shares a wall with the visiting locker room in the bowels of the arena.
That exchange with his players was easily the most fire shown by any Lobo on Tuesday.
Utah State (12-11, 4-8 Mountain West) snapped a five game skid Tuesday and avenged a blowout loss in the Pit on Jan. 9 thanks to going 21 of 28 from the free-throw line and scoring nine secondchance points in the opening half. While the Aggies didn’t score any second-chance points in the second half, the nine in the first half set the tone.
“I think that’s effort,” Neal said. “I think that’s how hard they play.”
Neal wasn’t sure whether Tuesday’s game was the result of a hangover from Saturday’s heartbreaking overtime loss at first- place San Diego State, a game in which the Lobos squandered a five point lead in the final 15 seconds of regulation, three of those after a referee made a mistaken call of a Lobo turnover that the Mountain West offices later sent out a statement acknowledging as a missed call.
“I don’t know,” Neal said. “I thought with our preparation (in the days between the SDSU loss and Tuesday’s game) and I thought with their mentality, I thought that they (the Lobos) were hungry. But we didn’t play with it tonight. ...
“We can’t get up for games when there’s 13,000 in the building and you’re playing the No. 1 team or
when you’re home (and not in other games). We’ve got to play with that level all the time. I feel bad because they’re finding (that) out the hard way.”
The announced crowd in the Spectrum on Tuesday night was 9,290, but if it was indeed that much, it was a far cry from the environment the Lobos faced Saturday in Viejas Arena.
Nevertheless, the crowd had plenty to cheer about with the Aggies, who shot 53.3 percent in the opening half and got to the line time and again as Lobos defenders continued to look a step slow, fouling frequently — leading to Sam Logwood fouling out and three other Lobos racking up four fouls.
“The thing with us was we gave a jump-shooting team 28 free throws,” Neal said. “We just didn’t guard. We didn’t stay in front of people. ... We just didn’t have any pop tonight.”
Utah State’s Chris Smith led three Aggies in double figures with 19 points and was 7 of 8 from the charity stripe. UNM countered with 22 points and five assists from Elijah Brown and 21 points, seven rebounds from Tim Williams.