Going into the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitational, New Mexico knew Weber State was fond of shooting the ball from beyond the arc.
The Wildcats did not introduce any surprises, as solid 3-point shooting bounced UNM out of the tournament with a 75-67 win on Wednesday night, ending postseason play for the Lobos.
The first half was a little shaky on both ends, but UNM appeared to have things under control, not giving up the lead after a 3-2 count at the beginning of the contest.
However, the second half was a different story. New Mexico went against its known identity of working the ball into the post, and facilitating offense down low. Though the Lobos were getting the ball to their forwards, they weren’t getting layup looks like in the first half.
“We have to understand who we are,” head coach Yvonne Sanchez said. “Our bread and butter was to go inside.”
Sanchez said an abundance of players tried to do too much and uncharacteristically so. She said it is unfortunate UNM stepped away from its identity in the first game of the postseason.
“We should have just kept spoon feeding them in,” Sanchez said. “To try to match them 3-for-3, we’re not that team.”
Senior forward Alexa Chavez said it wasn’t that the Lobos strayed away from the gameplan, it was more so that players felt they could take advantage of Weber State’s cushion by hitting jump shots, rather than driving to the rim.
“We definitely stopped getting the ball inside,” Chavez said. “I mean, we had open looks, a lot of our shots just weren’t falling. When you feel like you have an open look, you really do just stop going inside.”
It wasn’t just the offense that baffled Sanchez. The head coach added that she saw differences in the team’s defense once Weber State started hitting deep-range shots. She said players would be working on stopping the three pointer by attaching themselves to man-to-man coverage, not utilizing Sanchez’s help-defensive scheme.
“I thought our defense wasn’t very good in the first half, but I thought, you know, you make some adjustments,” Sanchez said. “We played a lot of single-man defense and we didn’t help. We weren’t very good with our help defense.”
Senior Kadijah Shumpert said the problems defensively had to do with Weber State’s personnel, in addition to the Lobos not adhering to help-defense.
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“A big part of their game is that they start five guards. So, in that aspect, offensively, they have the advantage of the drive against us bigger posts,” Shumpert said. “We really thought we would be able to take it to them on offense, in our post work, because they didn’t have anyone to guard us.”
New Mexico still outscored the Wildcats 44-32 inside the paint, but it wasn’t enough as Weber State had the advantage of the 3-pointer.
Chavez said she didn’t expect Weber State to have as much success as they did on drives to the hoop, something that hurt the squad just as much as the Wildcats’ ability to hit the three.
“They were going in hard every time,” Chavez said. “I mean they came to play.”
Weber State will move on to the next round play the winner of North Dakota and Grand Canyon.
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
