SAN JOSE, Calif. — As he sat there, hands folded in the locker room, a pained expression on his face, Dairese Gary recounted the agony he felt when the UNM men’s basketball team’s magic-carpet-ride season was expiring before his eyes. The season witnessed the Lobos win their first NCAA Tournament game in 11 years.
“You’re feeling like you’re in quicksand,” he said. “Everything is going wrong and you keep sinking. You’re trying to get back, and, you know if you win this game, you get to the next level, but you can’t get there.”
Gary had yet to take his uniform off, as if to take in a few more moments of a 30-win season experience in the same basketball shorts and sweat-soaked jersey, before it went into a laundry basket, on its way to a stow-away closet, where it will be suspended from a hanger until next season.
This loss, an 82-64 drumming by Washington in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Gary said, “It’s going to stay with me until we play the next game. I hate losing. It’s going to stick with me until I redeem myself.”
An ironic statement, considering Gary was the only redeeming value in a game gone awry, a second-round thumping at the hands of Washington. In it, Gary did all he could to help his team find its way back from a 12-point, first-half deficit. Had Gary not been there, the disparity would likely have been worse.
While Darington Hobson — the Mountain West Conference’s Player of the Year — faded to the background, bothered by a sore, achy wrist, Gary took center stage. So much of the attention diverted toward Hobson’s wrist, few knew Gary was battling bruised ribs. Even so, he had 15 points in the first half, finishing with 25 for the game.
“Gary, wow,” said Huskies head coach Lorenzo Romar. “He hurt us singlehandedly. All those different shots that they were getting were directed by him. We noticed he was controlling everything.”
Quietly, Gary’s been doing it all year, the forgotten member of the Three Lobo-teers — the other two, of course, being Hobson and lone senior Roman Martinez.
And while Martinez departs Lobo land, and while Hobson mulls over the prospect of a professional career, Gary will definitely be back next year, a year older, a year wiser, imparted with the knowledge of what it takes to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
“I want to get back to this spot,” Gary said.
Who wouldn’t?
Lobo head coach Steve Alford said, with the Lobos winning 30 games this year, added to the past success they’ve had the last two years, Gary has an opportunity to be the winningest UNM player in Lobo history.
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“I think he goes into his senior year being the best guard in our league, if not one of the best throughout the country,” Alford said. “We won 30 basketball games. There’s only four teams that beat us this year. We played a very difficult schedule. We beat six ranked teams. We’ve won championships. We’ve done a lot this year. Now here on the national stage, he proves himself as well.”
Not only proved himself, but legitimately pushed himself into the early conversation for consideration in next year’s MWC Player of the Year honor. Yes, his performance warrants that type of attention.
Throughout the year, several coaches and writers echoed a similar tone when it came to the Lobos. Without Hobson, the dynamics of the team would have been different, but without Gary, UNM wouldn’t have amassed nearly the amount of wins it did. In many minds, Gary was the deciding cog which powered the Lobo machine.
Romar felt the same way.
“He’s just a bull with that basketball,” Romar said. “He’s got great quickness and we had not played against him before. We watched him on film. We watched him in person the other night, but, until you’re in front of him, you don’t understand how quick and strong he is.”
Nor how instrumental he is.
As it stands, the Lobos, Gary said, will be “amazing” should Hobson return next season. What’s even more amazing, though, is how long Gary’s been shortchanged on credit.
Until next year.
