The time has come for New Mexico to stop dwelling on its second-half collapse which merited New Mexico State’s season sweep over the Lobos.
Head coach Yvonne Sanchez has bigger plans with conference play on the horizon.
“Now it's season two and we want to get better every day,” Sanchez said. “But don’t kid yourself, we want to win a championship.”
UNM’s journey will begin with Wednesday’s night conference tipoff at 7:30 p.m. in Reno, Nevada against a Wolfpack team that has seen quite a change in personnel. New Mexico’s posts will no longer have to square off against Mimi Mungedi, the 6-foot-8 rebounding machine whose eligibility card expired last season.
“I feel like I finally got the scout down on Mimi, so I am actually a little sad that she’s not going to be there,” Lobos senior forward Khadijah Shumpert said. “It’s going to be a different game with them then what we’ve had in the past because that was a huge part in their game.”
As if trying to make up for the loss of a premier player in anticipation for the 2015 campaign wasn’t enough, Nevada had an injury-riddled start to the 2015-2016 campaign. Junior guards T Moe and Ashlee Jones, along with senior forward Julia Shelbourn, all went down with season ending knee injuries in the month of November.
“We are devastated that this is our third season-ending injury so early into the year,” Nevada head coach Jane Albright said in a release on Nov. 27. “We’ve lost three of our starters now and in them we’ve lost valuable on-court experience and leadership. Now our younger members will have opportunities to step up and give us great minutes.”
While Nevada is dealing with a bruised and battered squad, New Mexico (7-4) has managed to stay relatively healthy throughout the non-conference schedule.
Although freshman center Jaisa Nunn is listed as day-to-day with an undisclosed injury, senior forward Alexa Chavez has overcome foot surgery to start the season, and freshman guard Emily Lines is back on the practice floor after missing seven games with a foot injury.
Even with a relatively healthy unit, Sanchez is not looking past a limping Nevada (1-10) squad just yet, as the head coach said she has seen a lot of strange things happen in lieu of conference play.
“We can’t worry about what our opponent’s record is,” Sanchez said. “We have to worry about what we have to do to win basketball games.”
Sanchez has always preached the importance of having a sound base on the defensive side of the ball but has recently been encouraging an up-tempo offense. Sanchez said she has the personnel to push the ball up court rather than a slow-pace half-court offense.
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The head coach has stressed that good defense creates offense, which has the potential to fit in nicely with the fast paced offense.
Shumpert said the Lobos will utilize whatever game plan is implemented by Sanchez, but will eventually come down to whether or not the Lobos can execute.
“Conference is a whole new game,” Shumpert said. “Anything that happened before now doesn’t matter.”
In anticipation for the calendar flipping to 2016, the Lobos’ calendar has already shifted to conference as tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Lawlor Events Center on Wednesday night.
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on twitter @Liam_CE.
