Cold-shooting Lobos fall to Tulsa in NIT semifinal
INDIANAPOLIS — A chance to cut down the nets fell two wins short for the New Mexico men’s basketball team.
The Lobos dug themselves a first-half hole in Thursday night’s NIT semifinals against Tulsa and never had enough to get over the hump in a 74-69 loss at Hinkle Fieldhouse. UNM was seeking its first postseason championship in school history in what was its third appearance in the NIT semifinals.
“You know our guys kept fighting, but we just didn’t have our fastball tonight,” said Lobos coach Eric Olen. “Credit to Tulsa. They played well.”
The Golden Hurricane (30-7) moves into Sunday’s championship against Auburn at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Auburn beat Illinois State in Thursday’s late semifinal, a game attended by Charles Barkley and Bruce Pearl.
The Lobos’ season ends with a 26-11 record — and a flurry of question marks in the days and weeks ahead. The transfer portal opens Tuesday, and a number of key players have big decisions to make about where they’ll play next.
“Yeah, I just plan to go home, talk to my family about it and put some of my thoughts into prayer,” said New Mexico guard Jake Hall , the Mountain West freshman of the year and a player who will undoubtedly command a big payday from whomever he represents next season.
If Thursday was his final game in a Lobos uniform, it wasn’t necessarily his best. While he did finish with a team-high 18 points, he made only one of his 10 attempts from 3-point range. Half of his points came from the free throw line.
“We didn’t have the energy we usually do at the start of games, and they got out early on us,” Hall said. “We never really bounced back from that.”
Tulsa came into the game as one of the top 3-point shooting teams in the country. The Golden Hurricane certainly looked like it in the first half. They combined to make nine of their first 17 shots from beyond the arc and led 36-29 at the break.
They led nearly the entire way, going ahead by as many as nine before the Lobos began chipping away. Every time they got within striking distance, something bad seemed to happen — a turnover, a missed shot or a breakdown on defense.
“Yeah, that part’s really frustrating,” said Lobos guard Luke Haupt. “We had our chances, for sure, but couldn’t really do the little things we needed to do.”
UNM managed to tie it at 59 with five minutes remaining after four unanswered points from J.T. Rock. Tulsa then missed a pair of 3-point attempts on its ensuing possession, giving the Lobos a chance to take its first lead of the second half.
It never happened. Hall missed an open 3-pointer from the top of the key, which kick-started a decisive 8-0 run for the Golden Hurricane. That, for all intents and purposes, was it.
“I can walk out of here knowing we did a lot of good things this year,” said freshman Uriah Tenette , another first-year player who will command a big payday heading into his sophomore season. “I’ll take away some great memories from this team, from the older guys who helped get us here. We came here trying to build something, and I think we did.”
Tenette worked his way into the starting lineup during the NIT run, taking the place of Antonio Chol. Tenette was held to eight points on 2-for-9 shooting; Chol was scoreless after missing all five of his shots.
Retaining Tenette and Hall will be a focal point for the Lobos, as will having Olen come back for a second year. Introduced as UNM’s coach on April 1, 2025, he immediately shot down a question about his possible connection to other jobs — and his status as UNM’s coach moving forward.
“Yeah, I’m the coach of New Mexico,” he said. “And yeah, I’m not going to comment on anything outside of that.”
New Mexico center Tomislav Buljan had one of the roughest outings of his apparently brief Lobos career, finishing with nine points and seven rebounds on 4-for-13 shooting. Facing an uncertain future with his eligibility as a 23-year-old freshman with a handful of professional seasons in Europe under his belt, he echoed the comments of several teammates afterward and said he’s not sure what comes next.
Rock, for his part, more than held his own. He finished with 16 points and half a dozen rebounds in limited minutes as he and Buljan platooned in the low post. Once again, neither was on the floor at the same time, continuing a season-long trend of having four guards and a post player rather than two bigs and three guards.
Tulsa’s defense responded by blocking a season-high seven shots.
“We weren’t able to get to where we wanted to be on the floor,” Olen said. “I felt like we struggled with some end-of-drive decision-making. We got seven shots blocked and, again, credit to them but that’s not something they have been doing all season in terms of blocking shots.”
NOTES
Auburn-Illinois State: The Tigers were never in danger and rolled to an 88-66 win over Illinois State in the late semifinal game. Auburn shot 62% from the field and got 24 points from Keyshawn Hall . The Tigers led by 13 at the half and were never threatened the rest of the way.
True colors: Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez attended the game wearing a cherry red blazer as she sat courtside, not far from where Barkley and Pearl were sitting. UNM was the last Mountain West team still playing this season and was seeking its first trip to the NIT finals since the 1964 team lost to Bradley in the championship game in Madison Square Garden.
That remains the furthest any Lobos team has ever gone in the postseason.
Had the Lobos won Thursday, they would have had a media session Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium alongside the Final Four players and coaches, then had a brief practice at Gainbridge Fieldhouse just a few blocks away.
They also would have been given a private suite to watch Saturday’s Final Four.
Not multiple storm systems: Tulsa’s nickname is Golden Hurricane.
Singular.
Twice during the pregame routine, the Hinkle public address announcer called them the Golden Hurricanes. Plural.
Justice Bowl: Tulsa and New Mexico will forever be connected by a game that never happened.
The schools’ football teams paired off in the fictitious Justice Bowl in 1982 after both teams went 10-1 in the regular season and neither received a bowl invitation.
Those were the days when making it to a bowl game was a huge accomplishment and not a participation award for winning six games.
The Justice Bowl was a radio broadcast generated by both schools. The Tulsa version had the Golden Hurricane winning; the UNM production was a Lobos win. It had play-by-play, sound effects and separate endings to make everyone happy.
Thursday’s basketball game at Hinkle — that was real with no alternate endings.
