Khadijah Shumpert joined an elite club at New Mexico after a 71-57 victory over the visiting San Jose Spartans on Saturday afternoon.
The senior forward collected 16 points to propel her past the career mark of 1,000 points during her tenure at New Mexico. She is just the 14th member to join the 1,000-point, 500-rebound club in program history.
Shumpert said in the post-game interview that her accolade wouldn’t have meant as much if her team hadn’t won.
Though the squad did manage to leave WisePies Arena with a victory, the game was highlighted by an abundance of up and down play.
“San Jose State does a good job of making games really ugly,” head coach Yvonne Sanchez said. “Sometimes you get caught in their pace and you don’t want to but it just sucks you in.”
Shumpert’s 16-point, nine-rebound night left her just one board shy of her fourth double-double of the season. It was also the senior’s 10th contest with four or more fouls in a game, limiting her to just 20 minutes of action.
The refs were not shy about blowing their whistles in a game that featured 49 fouls, 30 of which were called on New Mexico. The high number of personal fouls was complimented by UNM’s inability to take care of the basketball as the Lobos gave the ball away 22 times throughout the game.
Sanchez attributed the high number of fouls and turnovers to UNM’s lack of discipline in playing their own game and conforming to what San Jose (6-13, 4-4 MW) does.
The head coach said she has been working on letting people play through their mistakes without much interference, but she added that she was forced to pull players for their mental mistakes.
“I did pull the trigger a little bit today and I think they knew why,” Sanchez said. “I needed specific things done when I put them in, and told them that, and they didn’t do them. So I took them back out.”
Guard Cherise Beynon said she was one of the players susceptible to being drawn into San Jose’s run-and-gun style of play and said she had to tell herself to just relax and play her own game.
“Maybe playing San Jose, I was trying to move too fast,” Beynon said. “I need to shoot when I’m ready, not in a hurry because the shot clock is running down.”
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Beynon’s play significantly improved after the first half. The guard scored 14 of her team-high 17 points in the final 20 minutes of play.
What helped, she said, was slowing things down and not trying to do too much. After she started feeding the posts, the guard said her outside shot opened up tremendously and she didn’t have to take as many rushed and contested shots.
Beynon added ten boards to collect her second double-double of the season.
Shumpert said it was an overall team effort that New Mexico (10-7, 3-3 MW) needed to get back into its offense and its winning ways.
“The team’s excited because this is what we needed to get back on track. We needed this win,” Shumpert said. “It was definitely a big win for us.”
Shumpert’s career total of 1,006 career points has placed her for 20th all-time, though she has a chance to climb multiple spots should she keep her scoring pace this season. Caroline Durbin sits just five points ahead in 19th place with 1,011 total points.
Shumpert’s 1,006 points alongside her 535 rebounds places her in the same ranks as her former teammate Sara Halasz, who achieved the feat in 2014.
“Khadijah’s really special and she’s not only going to be special this year,” Sanchez said. “You’ll hear her name four, five, six, seven years down the line when you’re talking about Lobo women’s basketball.”
For Shumpert, joining the list is special since not many people have reached the milestone after coming through the New Mexico program. Shumpert said she is glad that the she accomplished the accolade in a game that helped the Lobos win and wasn’t just a moment for her.
“I’m really excited, especially because there’s not a lot of people who have done it in the history of UNM women’s basketball,” Shumpert said. “It’s a pretty exciting thing.”
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers volleyball, women’s basketball, baseball, and beach volleyball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
