Archive for the ‘UW-New Mexico men’s hoops’ category

Quotes from UW-New Mexico

January 17th, 2010

Some quotes that didn’t make the paper from Wyoming’s 70-68 home loss to New Mexico Saturday:

“I think we’ll get better. A lot of times failure comes before success.” — UW sophomore point guard JayDee Luster.

“It just goes to show you when you play one of the best teams in the country and you execute the game plan the coaches put out for you, it gives you an opportunity to win.” — UW sophomore center Adam Waddell.

Note: New Mexico is now 16-3 and was ranked No. 15 the previous week before it lost its first two MWC games.

“If we’d have played New Mexico a month ago we would have got drilled by 20. I really believe that.” — UW coach Heath Schroyer.

“I thought it was two really young basketball teams fighting like crazy for a win. Sometimes the game can get ugly. There were a lot of turnovers and that’s what made the game ugly.” — New Mexico coach Steve Alford. The two teams combined for 41 turnovers.

“We find ways of winning. We found a way to win (this game) and had one guy make a 3. Back in late November we might have had seven guys make a 3.” — Alford.

“We have only just begun and the best is yet to come.” — UW football coach Dave Christensen to the crowd at halftime as UW honored the football team for its 7-6 season and New Mexico Bowl victory.

See Monday’s paper for more from the UW-New Mexico game, including on why sophomore guard A.J. Davis’ playing time has been cut back recently.

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Posted in Football, UW men's basketball, UW-New Mexico men's hoops

UW-New Mexico postgame thoughts

January 16th, 2010

This time it was turnovers and free-throw shooting that resuled in a Wyoming loss.

The Cowboys committed 23 turnovers and and missed eight free throws in a 70-68 loss at home to New Mexico Saturday.

Twelve of the turnovers came in the second half, and UW sophomore point guard JayDee Luster missed all five of his free-throw attempts — four in the second half.

“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot down the stretch,” coach Heath Schroyer said.

Yes, the Cowboys did.

Yet it’s amazing that Schroyer remains so positive about this team and this season. Granted, you can’t just give up on a team with just one senior. Maybe inside Schroyer’s insides are torn up, but he’s pretty calm and collected on the outside.

UW outrebounded New Mexico and made seven 3-pointers.

The Lobos got an unexpected career-high 18 points from sophomore forward A.J. Hardeman, which was 11 more than his season average. They needed all of them as they shot just 3 of 19 from 3-point range.

UW went 0-2 this week with losses by a combined five points.

I guess you can say this team is getting better as it’s playing close games despite losing. That’s Schroyer’s take on it (see my column in Sunday’s paper).

We will see how much better this team is getting when it plays at No. 18 BYU Wednesday.

On a couple of players notes:

–It was nice to see true freshman point guard Desmar Jackson play well with a career-high four steals to go with a MWC high eight points.

–Seems like sophomore guard A.J. Davis is back in Schroyer’s dog house for too many turnovers and not rebounding well. He played just five minutes today.

More on that in the follow-up story for Monday’s paper.

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Posted in UW men's basketball, UW-New Mexico men's hoops

UW-New Mexico five things to watch

January 15th, 2010

1. Darington Hobson: This New Mexico junior and junior-college transfer is the likely Newcomer of the Year in the MWC. At 6-7 he can play about every position on the floor, and may be most comfortable at point guard. He leads the Lobos in scoring, rebounding and assists. This guy is GOOD!

2. More scoring from more guys: The Cowboys got 48 points from three players against TCU — Afam Muojeke, Adam Waddell and JayDee Luster. The rest of the team scored 11. UW needs more contributions from more players.

3. Smart drives: A big part of UW’s offense is driving to the basket and drawing a foul. But recently it seems like the team either misses those shots or gets called for offensive fouls. The Cowboys need to be smart when doing this and avoid the three to five offensive fouls a game. Those miscues are turnovers.

4. Second to none: There is a stat floating out there that UW’s shooing percentage defense on foes’ first shots is around  35 percent. That’s pretty good. But when teams get two or three shots a possession to score, that’s not good. Second-chance points and rebounding have been rough areas for the Cowboys. If they give the Lobos too many of those Saturday the Pokes have no chance to win.

5. Home-court advantage: UW fed off its home-court advantage in its 85-83 win over San Diego State last Saturday. It needs a similar effort, but it would be nice not to get behind by 17 early in the second half like it did against the Aztecs. Or, get off to a slow start which has occurred in all three of UW’s conference games this season.

The live blog from the game starts at about 1 p.m. at http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2010/01/11/wyoming-vs-new-mexico-live-blog-basketball/

Also, see Saturday’s paper for more on this game, the Cowgirls’ game at New Mexico and a football update that includes another key offensive player from this past season that won’t be back for the 2010 season.

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Posted in General, UW-New Mexico men's hoops

No free pass here

January 14th, 2010

There are plenty of shortcomings regarding Wyoming men’s basketball.

Rebounding, turnovers, defense, effort come to the forefront.

Coach Heath Schroyer hopes free-throw shooting doesn’t get added to the list.

The Cowboys have been among the nation’s leaders in free throws attempted and made this season, and were last season as well. Getting to the line and making them is a big part of their game.

In UW’s 62-59 loss at TCU Tuesday it was just 15 of 24 from the line. That’s nine points left out there, but potentially as many as 13 as the Cowboys missed front ends to two one-and-one situations.

“We have to make free throws. That’s a pet peeve of mine when we miss them,” Schroyer said. “We have to concentrate and make free throws. Especially in this league because we don’t have a great margin of error.”

The Cowboys (8-8, 1-2) enter Saturday’s game with New Mexico (15-3, 1-2) shooting 73.1 percent from the line. That’s decent but it can be better.

For more of Schroyer’s concerns about Saturday’s game, and specifically about New Mexico, see Friday’s paper.

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Posted in UW men's basketball, UW-New Mexico men's hoops