As far as Craig Neal is concerned, the New Mexico-San Diego State basketball rivalry is back where it should be.
It’s hard to argue against that perspective. Saturday’s contest between the Aztecs and the will be a duel between the Mountain West first-place and second-place teams.
It also brings together the league’s most potent offense versus its most stout defense. UNM (14-8, 7-2 MW) leads all teams in scoring offense since MW play began with 80.7 points in conference games. SDSU (17-6, 10-0), at the other end, is the only team to give up less than 60 points in its Mountain West games, 59.4 per game.
The rivalry, one of the best in the league, took a tip last year with New Mexico’s struggles. But with the Aztecs running out to a 10-0 start to its MW slate and the Lobos riding a four-game win streak, Neal expects the game to be a great one.
“You have the leading scoring team in the league and the best defensive team in the league,” Neal said Thursday. “Something has to give, but looking forward to the challenge.”
Only a handful of guys on the current roster – player and coach alike – have experienced the rivalry at its fiercest, such as Cullen Neal, Obij Aget, Devon Williams and, of course, Craig Neal himself. The head coach said he thinks he’s prepared the newcomers for what’s to come.
Forward Tim Williams witnessed last year’s UNM-SDSU games from the bench when the Aztecs swept the Lobos 56-42 in San Diego and 63-46 in Albuquerque. His arrival came the year after UNM and SDSU went toe-to-toe for both the conference regular-season and tournament titles.
Williams said he knows what the history is: that these teams always have big games. However, it’s not the same watching them from the sidelines.
“The only way to get experience is actually being in those games,” he said. “You can watch and you can see certain things you can do, but nothing can replicate actually being out there on the floor.”
On paper, San Diego State doesn’t score much. They are currently ranked ninth of the 11 teams in scoring offense through their 10 conference games (67.5).
It hasn’t negatively affected the Aztecs since they overcame a 7-6 nonconference record to win 10 straight MW games. Five of those wins were decided by five points or less and, most recently, SDSU held off Colorado State by two points, 69-67.
The low-scoring moniker is particularly misleading, Craig Neal said, since the Aztecs’ strong defense helps limits possessions. The Aztecs run a lot of full-court press, and the coach said he been preparing his team to deal with the press much like he did leading up to the second UNLV game. That proved successful in its 87-83 win over the Runnin’ Rebels.
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“We're doing a really good job of breaking it, where we really struggled on it early in the year,” he said. “Now let's really work on offense.”
Both teams rank well in rebounding at both ends of the floor. San Diego State has the most offensive boards in conference games with 13.5 per game. UNM does pull down a league-high 29.2 defensive rebounds per game, but the Aztecs get 27.5.
To combat SDSU’s potency on the offensive glass, Craig Neal said team can’t take bad shots and try to limit the Aztecs on the boards since they get production there.
“We’re going to have to get on their glass,” he said. “It’s where they get a lot of their shots, and we'll switch some things up on them and do what we do and play our game, but we're going to have to score the ball.”
J.R. Oppenheim is the assistant sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers men’s basketball and women’s soccer. Contact him at assistantsports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JROppenheim.
