by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
It was the type of loss that has become too familiar to the UNM men's basketball team.
After building a 10-point lead in the first half and rallying from a 16-point second half deficit, the Lobos lost an 85-83 heartbreaker to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas on Wednesday at The Pit.
UNM head coach Ritchie McKay said it was a tough loss to swallow after the way the team fought back.
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"I thought our guys did a good job of battling," he said. "We've had this song sang a couple of different times here in the last two weeks."
The Lobos held a 35-25 lead with 3:30 left in the first half but scored just one field goal the rest of the half. UNLV took
advantage and tied the game at 37 heading into halftime.
The Runnin' Rebels seemed like they were going to blow the game away in the second half, going on a 21-5 run to build a 58-42 lead with 13:39 remaining.
However, UNM chipped away at the lead, and a Darren Prentice 3-pointer gave the Lobos a 71-70 advantage with about five minutes left in the game.
UNM had a final shot with half a second left, but J.R. Giddens' 3-point attempt
fell short.
McKay said the Lobos dug themselves too deep of a hole to climb out of.
"We got a little bit out of synch," he said. "The game just got away from us."
UNM guard Tony Danridge said the team needs to do a better job of
holding leads.
"We just got to execute," he said. "We got to start trying to put teams away. We need to get more stops and don't let the team back in. We got to stomp on their neck."
Giddens had perhaps his best game of the season in the loss, scoring a career-high 28 points on 12-of-19 shooting. He also grabbed eight rebounds.
Aaron Johnson finished with a double-double, scoring 15 points and collecting 11 boards.
Danridge and Prentice added 14 points each.
The Runnin' Rebels' Kevin Kruger had a lights-out performance for UNLV, scoring 29 points on 9-of-11 shooting. He finished with nine assists and no turnovers, and he hit 7-of-9 3-point attempts.
McKay suspended Giddens for two games this season and brought him off the bench Wednesday. Giddens thrived in the second half, scoring 10 straight points in the closing minutes.
After his performance against UNLV, the Lobos' leading scorer can give them a boost heading into the conference tournament, McKay said.
"J.R. played great," he said. "You saw a little bit tonight what we saw at the beginning of the year. Hopefully, he gets his confidence back here for the Mountain West Conference Tournament."
