The No. 25 Utah Utes are no longer undefeated in the Mountain West Conference - they were dethroned by the Lobos 49-46 in a game that came down to the last seconds Thursday night at The Pit.
The Utes couldn't fully recover from a 9:50 scoring drought, but rallied to tie the score at 44 with less than three minutes remaining.
That's when sophomore guard Abbie Letz nailed a shot from the perimeter to give UNM a 3-point advantage, followed by another two points from Melissa Forest.
Utah guard Shona Thorburn was not as effective in the clutch as she usually is and uncharacteristically missed a wide-open 3-point shot. Thorburn fought to get her own rebound, but missed again.
Then Utah's Kim Smith, the MWC Preseason Player of the Year, was fouled on the putback and connected on both free throws, bringing the Utes within a shot at the win.
The Lobos were penalized for a shot-clock violation and Utah regained possession with 42 seconds to play, but weren't able to utilize the time.
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"I don't know what happened," UNM head coach Don Flanagan said. "They seemed confused. They didn't go at the basket or anything. I was expecting a 3-point shot earlier. They dribbled around for a little bit and then lost the ball for a while."
But Utah head coach Elaine Elliott said the Utes had a plan, but they weren't able to execute it in the last seconds.
"We had already talked about what we wanted," she said. "We knew exactly what we were going to do."
UNM's win ended a nine-game winning streak for Utah.
Flanagan said he was not able to breathe a sigh of relief until the buzzer sounded. It has become tradition for UNM and Utah matchups to come down to the last seconds.
In fact, Flanagan recalled a time a couple years ago when the Lobos were up 49-46, the Utes threw a baseball pass from the other end of the floor and through the hoop to tie the game and eventually beat UNM in overtime.
"I was kind of having a flashback there," he said.
Flanagan said the win was even better because the Utes were ranked in the top-25.
"It was not only a conference win, but a ranked team," he said. "And Utah certainly deserves to be ranked. They're quite a good team. So that was big."
The win over Utah brings UNM closer to entering the MWC tournament next month as the No. 1 seed.
Junior forward Lindsey Arndt had a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds, junior guard Mandi Moore had nine and Letz added 11 for the Lobos.
Smith had 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Utes.
UNM will play host to the BYU Cougars Saturday at 7 p.m. at The Pit.
