UNM’s Jamal Mashburn, Jr., left, drives past the Great Osobar mine, Montana, on Nov. 20. Mashburn became the fourth Lobo in the past decade to post consecutive 26-point games last week. (Roberto E. Rosales / Journal)
Progress is not always a straight line.
For UNM Lobos, any upward move they made at the start of the season has certainly gone off course with two losses in Las Vegas, Nevada last week – one a mostly competitive game against a very talented defensive team in UAB and the other a surprisingly offensive no-show against a Towson team that the Lobos were clearly unprepared for on Friday.
More worrying than the results in what is a pretty big rebuilding project season has been the inability of some Lobo players to show they can handle adversity in the game when things don’t go their way.
The team is exciting when things go well, but all too often a bad move has turned into a bad series of plays. And that’s something that the friendly Las Cruces spectators will be happy to help try again on Tuesday night to achieve this when the Lobos (4-3) continue their current two-game losing streak into the renewal of the Rio Grande Rivalry, which was forced to suspend in 2020 due to government health restrictions.
“The bottom line is it’s a collective will from our team,” said Lobo’s first year coach Richard Pitino. “We’re not there yet. And we take to the streets – rivalry game. You have to be able to guard. You have to be able to overcome whatever goes wrong. We’re not there yet. “
Jamal Mashburn, Jr his stats are important when he and his teammates can’t work together to figure out how to get mentally stronger.
“Every game there will be official acts and there will be some calls that you won’t want or some calls that you will be unhappy about,” said Mashburn. “We have to do a better job for ourselves, pushing forward and just moving on. …
“We just have to go out and keep playing and be positive about everything.”
SELECT COMPANY: Mashburn’s consecutive 26-point games at the Las Vegas Invitational – Thursday versus UAB and Friday versus Towson – have put him in pretty rare company over the past decade.
According to Sports-Reference.com, since the beginning of the 2010/11 season there has been 55 times that a Lobo player has scored 26 or more points in a game.
Only four of them did this in consecutive games, one of them twice:
- Mashburn last week (both neutral games against UAB and Towson);
- Tim Williams on January 4, 2017 (26 against Nevada in the pit) and January 7, 2017 (30 in the state of Utah);
- Elijah Brown on February 17, 2016 (26 against Boise State in the Pit) and February 20, 2016 (32 in the Air Force);
- Brown on January 30, 2016 (30 in Boise State) and February 2, 2016 (26 against UNLV in the pit);
- Dairese Gary on February 23, 2011 (26 against UNLV in the pit) and February 26, 2011 (32 at TCU).
Mashburn said there was little joy in the statlines to take.
“The only thing that matters to me is victory, so of course I have to do more and we have to improve as a team in many areas,” said Mashburn Jr .. “… You just overwhelmed us. You have overwhelmed and overwhelmed us. “
Pitino’s reaction to the game by the second player who followed him as a transfer from Minnesota to UNM last off-season:
“Offensive it was terrific – very dynamic. We must collectively have his mindset on a daily basis that it is time to get better each day. He does. And I think that’s why he’s confident. That’s why he’s in attack mode all the time. So he was great. “
HALF THE STORY: How bad was Lobos’ overall offensive in that Towson game on Friday?
In seven games and 14 halves of basketball this season, UNM has only shot under 40% off the field three times in one half, and two of them came in the same game:
- 30.0% – 2nd half vs. Towson on Friday;
- 34.4% – 1st half vs. Towson on Friday;
- 38.2% – 1st half vs. Grambling State on November 15th.
TUESDAY: New Mexico at New Mexico State, 7 p.m., Pan Am Center, 770 AM / 96.3 FM, Stream ESPN +
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