Patience is for the virtuous.
After watching the UNM men’s basketball team play two home exhibitions games at The Pit, it was finally the women’s basketball team’s turn.
The Lobos made a grand entrance into the renovated Pit and dismantled Division II opponent Western New Mexico 92-39 in their only exhibition game.
Head coach Don Flanagan said he was satisfied with the results, especially from a young and banged-up team.
“Obviously they had a big disadvantage height-wise,” he said. “But they had some quickness, and I thought, at times, our defense broke down, but we wanted to play a fast-paced game.”
Without the services of point guard Nikki Nelson and guard Sara Halasz, UNM closed the first half on a 23-8 run and galloped up The Pit ramp with a 41-17 halftime cushion.
The Lobos lost two junior guards for the season to ACL tears, Halasz’s coming in a preseason workout the day before Halloween.
But Tina Doughty filled in nicely. Doughty, a freshman from Granbury High School, scored nine first-half points. She was 4-of-8 from the field in the first period of play and led all scorers with with 15 points.
Doughty said that there were some things that she could have done better while running the point for the Lobos.
“I think I need to set up the play and just relax,” she said. “I got the first game out of the way, so now I can just focus. I just need to run our offense, and I think if I can do that we can get better shots.”
Porche Torrance, who missed nearly all of last season with a torn ACL, was back in action against the Mustangs.
Torrance said she wanted to be a force in the paint and nab rebounds for the Lobos. She had five on the night.
“I came out relaxed and wanted to crash he boards,” she said. “I tried to rebound because that is one of the things that I am focusing more on.”
Overall, the Lobos made nearly 50 percent of their shots (47.8) and shot 52 percent in the second half.
Flanagan said he wishes he and his team could have had another warm-up game before its rough home-opener game against Texas Tech on Friday.
“I thought that they did a better job in the first half and kind of ran out of energy in the first half,” he said. “But I thought a lot of players played quality minutes, but we fouled way too much, and you can’t put them on the free-throw line.”
