This late-season feel, to be sure, is foreign to the UNM women’s basketball team.
Don Flanagan’s Lobos have a rich tradition of being a mid-to-high seed in the Mountain West Conference tournament, but this year they find themselves with sub-.500 records (11-17, 5-11 MWC) and
tonight’s matchup with San Diego State as the league’s No. 7 seed.
Even more alien, for just the second time in 15 years at UNM, coach Flanagan will finish 2011 with a losing campaign, if not a postseason-less one. The Lobos, technically, can earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament should they win the MWC tourney. And that’s the only motivation Flanagan’s team needs.
“At this point in the season, you have to play relaxed, and you just hope you’re playing your best basketball at this time right now,” Flanagan said.
The Lobos are coming off Saturday’s 73-70 overtime victory at last-place Air Force, a “pressure win” that Flanagan hopes primed the Lobos for their do-or-die predicament.
Their first task will be getting past SDSU, the defending MWC tournament champions.
SDSU swept the Lobos this season by a combined nine points. In the two’s first meeting at Viejas Arena, UNM rallied from a 12-point, second-half deficit only to fall short in the final minutes, 56-53. The Lobos then fell short at The Pit, 50-44.
Just one year removed from winning the MWC tournament, the Aztecs have fallen on hard times. They’re 12-16 overall and 6-10 in the MWC, and their offensive production has dipped. The Aztecs are fifth in the conference in shooting (41.2 percent) and second to last in points per game (59.4) and 3-point percentage (29.3).
“The thing about them is that you hope they don’t shoot well because normally they don’t,” Flanagan said.
Normally, neither do the Lobos, but they’re hoping guard Amanda Best can supplement their offense. Best played the entire 45 minutes against Air Force, scored 20 points and nabbed 21 rebounds.
Flanagan said it was one of the best performances he’s seen.
“She fed the post 14 times,” he said. “I mean, if we could have made a few of those layups, then she would have had about 10 assists. So that would have been a triple-double.”
It just hasn’t been Best, as of late.
Freshman Jasmine Patterson had an instant impact for the Lobos, especially late in the season. With 13 seconds left against the Falcons, Patterson stole a pass, drove the lane and scored to put UNM up, 71-70, which sealed the win.
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“I don’t know what happened,” Patterson said. “I wasn’t even thinking, ‘Steal the ball.’ It just happened, and I was shocked.”
Which is what the MWC would be if the Lobos make a tournament run. Under Flanagan, though, stranger things have happened. Three years ago, UNM won the MWC tourney when no one expected it to.
Flanagan was asked if opening with SDSU is ideal. The coach, with his matter-of-fact humor, pointed out the obvious.
“It hadn’t been a good matchup for us in the first two games because they won both of them,” Flanagan said.
