Story by
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Hall goes off and Lobos end Cowboys’ 57-game preseason streak
- Story byAlbuquerque Journal, N.M.
- Hall goes off and Lobos end Cowboys’ 57-game preseason streak
STILLWATER, Okla. — Since November 1988, only two teams have beaten Oklahoma State in a preseason basketball game inside historic Gallagher-Iba Arena.
There was the Soviet Union national team on Nov. 22, 1988 — back when college teams still regularly played international teams in the preseason.
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And there there was Sunday, when Jake Hall and New Mexico snapped the Cowboys' 57-game preseason win streak, knocking the Big 12 squad off 99-89 in a game that counts for nothing in the grand scheme of things, but provides invaluable coaching film for two teams full of newcomers.
"Relative to the environment, I think it's a great experience for us," second-year Lobos coach Eric Olen said. "I thought our guards were really good, which is to be expected."
Good?
Hall, voted five days prior the Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year, scored UNM's first 14 points and at one point led Oklahoma State 20-17 by himself (the official score at that point was Lobos 22, Cowboys 17).
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That was with 10:29 left still in the first half, and Hall actually had only played 5 minutes, 21 seconds of that stretch in a game of heavy rotations.
By game's end, Hall had 31 points on 6-of-7 3-point shooting and was 9-of-10 from the free-throw line, drawing five fouls in the game.
His regular-season scoring high last year was 32.
Those 31 points were also the most scored by a Lobo in an exhibition game against another Division I team, surpassing the 23 scored by Sam Logwood against BYU in 2017.
Fellow double-digit scorers for UNM included freshman Fynn Lastring (16 points, three made 3s) and those other two starting guards in what could prove to be one of the better three-man backcourts in college basketball in Hudson Mayes (13 points, seven rebounds, eight fouls drawn) and Uriah Tenette (12 points, three assists.
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The game, however, wasn't without some concerns for Olen.
As expected, the loss from last year's team of Tomislav Buljan has left a question mark at the center spot, especially when it comes to rebounding.
The much more physical frontcourt of Oklahoma State out-rebounded UNM 45-35 and turned 22 offensive rebounds into 27 second-chance points.
"We got to see some things that we don't see in practice, right?" Olen said of the physical frontcourt — something the Lobos can't replicate on non-game days.
"That's where a lot of the value is (in a game like Sunday) — big, physical, athletic frontcourt that is really actively posting up around the basket a lot. That's not how we play offense, so we don't get those reps in practice."
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Lobo big men Federic Grani, a 23-year-old from Italy; Imran Suljanovic, a transfer from St. John's; Lastring, the German freshman; and Benjamin Schuch, the freshman from Austria, were all playing their first college games.
"The level of physicality and athleticism on the glass, that's an area we want to keep getting better," Olen said. "(Giving up) 22 offensive rebounds is not a consistently successful approach.
"The good news is those are things we think we can get better at, and we will get better at."
A year ago, UNM lost its preseason exhibition opener to a Washington State team that ended up winning just 12 games and Hall went 2-of-12 from 3-point range.
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Clearly, as Olen knows, there isn't much value in overanalyzing a box score after an exhibition.
But still, that opening-game flurry for Hall was something to behold.
"He kind of carried us in those first 10 minutes on offense," Olen said. "I think everyone else was settling in a little bit. Jake walks in here (already) settled in on offense. So, it was good. And there might be nights where he has to do that for us.
"(But) I think there's other nights where we'll figure out how to leverage the way he's played, and other guys are going to have big games (as a result of how teams have to defend Hall)."
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Geoff Grammer is the Sports Editor of the Journal, a podcaster, columnist and covers UNM Lobos basketball, among other things. Reach him at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.
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