Men's basketball: UNM faces coldest month since 1959

The month of February has come to a close, and New Mexico will likely be glad to see the flip of the calendar.

UNM concluded a winless month of basketball on Saturday with a 59-55 loss at Fresno State. New Mexico has not won since Jan. 31, marking the team’s longest losing streak since the 1959 season.

“It’s one of those things that’s like a broken record,” said head coach Craig Neal in a press release. “It’s frustrating, and nobody feels the pain worse than I do.”

With the loss, the Lobos are guaranteed a spot in the play-in round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament, the highest possible seed being at No. 7.

New Mexico fell into a deep hole against Fresno and couldn’t overcome the large first-half deficit. The Bulldogs led 30-8 with 7:29 remaining in the first half.

The Lobos made a late-half push that cut the first-half deficit to a mere seven points. After a 17-2 run, UNM was in much better shape heading into halftime after its dreadful start.

“I thought our kids played with passion, except for the first eight minutes,” Neal said in the release. “You can’t let them get out to a 30-8 lead. They scored 30 in the first eight minutes and then they scored 29 points the rest of the way. They (Lobos) showed a lot of fight; they never one time gave in.”

UNM (14-15, 6-11 Mountain West) kept clawing back to begin the second half, but never came closer than two points (35-33 with 16:10 remaining in second half).

After a free throw by senior guard Deshawn Delaney with one minute remaining in the game, the Lobos cut the lead to 55-53 and had a chance to tie or win the game, but a turnover by senior guard Hugh Greenwood with 15 seconds remaining sealed the deal for the Bulldogs (14-15, 9-7 MW).

The Lobos shot 41.5 percent (22-53) from the floor and a dismal 12.5 percent (1-8) from behind the 3-point line.

Delaney led all scorers with 15 points, five rebounds and three assists, and sophomore center Obij Aget recorded a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. He also recorded four blocks.

The Lobos made 7 of 12 free throws in the second half, 10 of 16 overall, but struggled to knock down clutch shots from the charity stripe late in the game.

“Free throws are very, very important, and if you can’t shoot 80 percent down the stretch, you are going to have a hard time winning,” Neal said. “We can’t continue to shoot 60 percent from the foul line.”

Kyle Tomasi is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @KyTo22.