Against Rice earlier this year, UNM had free throws late in the game but couldn’t connect with any of them. Against Auburn, UNM had two possessions to prevail but threw the ball away and took a bad shot.
Based on the results from the last two games, those days appear to be over.
For the second straight game UNM found a way to finish a high-scoring, back-and-forth contest, surging past UNLV 87-83 at WisePies Arena. Forward Tim Williams scored 29 points with 17 coming in the second half, as the Lobos sank six of its eight free throws in the final 1:13.
Four days ago UNM drained nine free throws on five trips to the foul line in an another offensive outpouring at Boise State. UNM (13-8, 6-2 Mountain West) now rides a four-game winning streak with a road trip to battle a San Diego State squad that has yet to lose a conference game.
“Like Ben Crenshaw said in the Ryder Cup -- because I'm a gold addict -- I've got a really special feeling about these guys,” Lobo head coach Craig Neal said. “And I always have, even when you all were writing us off and said we were a disaster in Hawaii. Well, that tonight wasn't a disaster and those guys grew up.”
UNM’s ability to close out a game shows the team’s maturation process, still a recurring theme when Neal addresses the media. In the final 23.2 seconds, guard Cullen Neal hit three free throws in two trips to the line and guard Xavier Adams made another two.
Adams also came up big when, with five seconds left, he got a partial block on UNLV’s Jordan Cornish, the reserve guard who kept the Rebels in the game with key 3-pointers in the second half.
Neither team took a large lead in the game – UNM by seven and UNLV by five – as the Lobos held a 47-43 halftime advantage. The second half proved especially tight with 10 scoring changes and another 10 ties, and UNM’s seven-point edge came in the final 14 seconds.
“They get my blood pressure up,” Neal said. “They play loose and they have no fear, and I told them tonight I wanted them to be fearless. They were pretty fearless.”
Williams’ big second-half production matched that of Cornish. The UNLV guard netted all of his 17 points in the second half, largely from the 3-point line where he dropped five triples on six tries.
UNLV also endured major foul problems. By the time the under-12-minute media timeout hit in the second half, six Rebel players had at least three whistles against them. Only one, forward Dwayne Morgan, fouled out and he didn’t even figure into the statistic sheet. The team went eight minutes without a foul.
Aside from Williams’ big game, Lobo guard Elijah Brown reached 26 points and connected on all 12 foul shots he took. Nearly all scoring came from UNM’s starters as Cullen Neal chipped in 11 points, center Obij Aget 10 and forward Sam Logwood five.
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Most of UNM’s scoring came in the paint, and was a wide margin better than UNLV's: 50-30. It matched the Lobos' season high; UNM also had 50 low-post paints against Texas Southern.
UNM also held edges in points off turnovers (25-18) and second-chance points (25-18). But UNLV found 33 points off the bench to UNM’s six, and those came from Adams.
Center Stephen Zimmerman Jr. paced UNLV with 21 points, followed by Cornish’s 17, guard Patrick McCaw’s 14, guard Ike Nwamu’s 11, and forward Derrick Jones Jr. with 10.
The Lobos led slightly in rebounding with 38 to UNLV’s 32.
J.R. Oppenheim is the managing editor for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers men’s basketball and women’s soccer. Contact him at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JROppenheim.
