December 1, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
No Day at the Beach for Alford's Lobos
By Mark Smith, Journal Staff WriterCANCUN, Mexico — Make no mistake. This was no vacation for the University of New Mexico men's basketball team.
And if the Lobos don't turn things around in a hurry, they aren't going to have much of a holiday in the coming weeks either.
The Lobos ended their four-game journey in the inaugural Cancun Challenge Sunday night with another loss, this one 68-62 to Drake despite a furious late rally.
Tournament officials billed the contest as the third-place game in the 10-team event. That might have been the case for Drake (3-2), which finished the Challenge 3-1, losing only to Vanderbilt on Saturday night.
UNM, however, could hardly be called the fourth-place finisher, having lost three of four games in the tournament — including one in the Pit just more than a week ago to a Central Florida team that handed Morehead State its first victory of the season earlier on Sunday in Cancun.
New Mexico (3-4) is under .500 after seven games for the first time since 2002-03.
"Our foul shooting is really hurting us; we didn't get to the foul line in either game (in Cancun)," said UNM coach Steve Alford. "You've got pretty similar teams and you get beat 22-9 at the line, and that's going to hurt you.
"And we're not a very good rebounding team, and that's reared its head in this tournament. We're struggling to play defense for 40 minutes, and that's what we've got to learn to do."
The Lobos were just 9-of-20 from the foul line (45.0 percent) and had 29 rebounds while Drake hit 22-of-32 free throws (68.8 percent) and had 36 boards.
Alford has seen Drake nearly every year of his coaching career. In previous stints as coach at Southwest Missouri and Iowa, Alford had not lost to the Bulldogs until the 2006-07 season. Drake's media official in Cancun said Alford's record against the Bulldogs was 15-1 lifetime entering the game while UNM's media guide listed the mark at 14-1.
Either way, Alford has now lost two straight to Drake. The Lobos, meanwhile are 0-2 against the Missouri Valley Conference this season, having blown a 16-point second-half lead in falling Nov. 16 at Creighton 82-75.
"I wish I had some answers to what's going on," said New Mexico's Daniel Faris, who had a team-high 14 points and three rebounds. "Our defense just needs to improve. This time we start off really well in the first half, but can't finish it off in the second half."
In Saturday's 67-55 loss to VCU, the Lobos came out sluggish and trailed 10-0 before rallying for a six-point lead. On Sunday, UNM didn't have a problem getting started, snatching early leads of 8-1 and 15-7.
But "New Mexico" and "lead" are two words that seemingly don't mix this season. The early advantage was short-lived.
Drake, which made just one of its first nine 3s, started to pound it inside behind 6-foot-8 Jonathan Cox and 6-8 Brent Heemskerk, and the Bulldogs went on a 16-2 run to move in front 23-17.
But the Bulldogs then went cold and didn't make a field goal the rest of the period while UNM got 3-pointers from Roman Martinez and Jonathan Wills and eventually recaptured the lead at 31-29. The half ended 31-31.
The teams exchanged baskets to start the second half before New Mexico, like it has in every loss this season, gave up a key run that it never recovered from. On Sunday, it was a 9-0 burst by Drake that moved the Bulldogs in front 42-36. Shortly thereafter, it was 53-42, the Bulldogs having scored all 15 points in a five-minute span via 3-pointers. After UNM got back within 53-47, the Bulldogs hit yet another 3 — this one by Josh Young — and Cox followed with a put-back as Drake eventually built the cushion to 64-48 with less than six minutes left.
The Lobos then staged their furious comeback, scoring 11 straight. They had a chance to pull within two, but freshman Phil McDonald missed a 3-pointer with about one minute remaining.
"I thought it was in, it felt good when I shot it," McDonald said. "But we just can't get down that far before we start playing."
Chad Toppert added 12 points for the Lobos while Roman Martinez had 11. Senior Tony Danridge had a team-high five assists, but went 0-for-3 from the floor and finished with three points.