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The Santa Fe New Mexican
Lobos fall to Arizona State 91-86 in final exhibition game
- Story byThe Santa Fe New Mexican
- Lobos fall to Arizona State 91-86 in final exhibition game
ALBUQUERQUE — It was only a practice game, with no bearing whatsoever on the regular season or the NET Rankings, but Sunday's preseason exhibition finale in The Pit could be a potential eye-opener for the New Mexico men's basketball team.
The last game in the Power Ford Tip-Off Series saw the Lobos drop a 91-86 decision to visiting Arizona State before 7,447 fans still buzzing from Saturday night's football win.
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Sun Devils forward Paulius Murauskas and guard Dillan Shaw — both off-season transfers who followed new ASU coach Randy Bennett from Saint Mary's — picked UNM apart, scoring 53 points and a dozen 3-pointers. The 6-foot-8 Murauskas, voted the Big 12 preseason Newcomer of the Year during the league's recent media day, had 31 points and nine rebounds.
Arizona State used a 16-0 first-half run to erase a 19-12 deficit and take a 13-point halftime lead. It quickly extended to 23 in the second half, drawing groans and surprised looks from a Lobos fanbase that watched them beat Oklahoma State on the road and hammer Washington State last weekend.
The Lobos did make a run of their own, using a 17-0 rally to close within 75-69 in the final seven minutes. Hudson Mayes had a pair of rim-rattling dunks at the tail end, including one where he drove in from the wing and posterized ASU center Ben Defty with a ferocious one-handed slam between Defty's outstretched arms.
Mayes is the grandson of Hall of Famer Roger Brown, a pair of 6-5 hoopers whose styles could not be more different. A power forward in the old ABA, Brown was a tenacious rebounder and threat in the post. He also wasn't a big dunker, saying the impact on his body was much less when he laid it in or settled for a short jumper.
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Mayes is anything but. Muscular and athletic, he is a human highlight reel. He showed that with his play Sunday, with 17 points and 10 rebounds — things that would have made grandpa proud.
"That's just my game," Mayes said. "Like, I'm physical. I'm athletic, so why not put it to use, right? It's my gift to use."
Jake Hall led the Lobos with 19 points, but he was far from the Jake Hall fans are used to seeing. He missed 10 of his first 11 shots and all nine of his initial 3-point tries before hitting three of his last four from beyond the arc.
Asked if the coaching staff considered limiting the number of shots Hall took en route to a 6-for-19 performance, Lobos coach Eric Olen said he'd actually like to see him shoot even more.
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"I wish he could have shot it 29 times," he said. "We, at no point, considered, like, not trying to get Jake more, and at no point during the season will we consider that."
UNM's two point guards, Uriah Tenette and Dax Hall, each finished in double digits. Tenette had 17 while Hall had 11 and a team-high four assists.
The younger Hall played 22 minutes and was an active presence on defense. With ASU's distinct size advantage creating a mismatch on paper in the low post, it was the play of the 6-1 Hall and 5-11 Tenette that made things a challenge for ASU down the stretch.
For Hall, he knew getting minutes as Tenette's backup at the point meant establishing himself at the defensive end. With his older brother putting up all-conference numbers, he has taken the different route of playing relentless defense.
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"Especially as an unproven freshman who wasn't very highly recruited out of high school, I knew I needed to prove myself," Hall said. "Guarding Uriah every day, guarding Jake every day, these are things that are just going to boost you defensively so every time I step on the court I feel like I can affect the game defensively."
When it was all said and done, Olen praised his team for cutting a 23-point deficit to 4 in the final minutes. He also said that, despite ASU taking 41 shots from 3-point range and making 16, his team's defense did what he wanted it to, given the size disparity between the two rosters. He said taking away the interior low-post game and forcing high-volume 3-pointers was what he wanted.
The Lobos will take next week off and host Utah Tech for their regular-season opener Nov. 2.
NOTES
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On the verge: Fresh off Saturday night's 21-16 home win over North Dakota State, the New Mexico football team woke up Sunday morning on the cusp of an AP Top 25 ranking for the first time in school history. The Lobos received 41 points in The Associated Press media poll for an unofficial No. 27 ranking.
Oklahoma State (24) and Wisconsin (25) were newcomers to the poll, while Iowa was the only other team ahead of them, with 76 points.
UNM got 43 points in the AFCA Coaches Poll to check in at No. 29. Oklahoma State, Wisconsin and Cincinnati are the unranked teams immediately in front of them.
The point totals in each poll are the most the Lobos have ever gotten in the current iteration of the weekly rankings, and they currently stand as the second-highest non-power team in the polls behind Boise State. The Broncos are No. 20 in the AP and 22 in the AFCA.
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Air time, amended: Lobos coach Jason Eck spoke about the challenges of playing on a short week ahead of North Dakota State's visit. UNM played at Hawaii the previous weekend but didn't return to Albuquerque until noon the following day, effectively cutting the preparation timeline ahead of the Bison's arrival.
Eck said the Mountain West originally scheduled the game against NDSU for last Friday night, which would have given the teams a national FOX telecast. He took his concerns to John Sullivan, the associate commissioner in charge of the league's football, and got the game moved to Saturday with a smaller TV footprint on CW.
"I was, like, you gotta be kidding me, right?" Eck said. "You should never make anybody come back from Hawaii and play a short week. So hopefully CW got good ratings for that because it was a heck of a game."
Change of plans: One last note on Saturday's football game concerns the pregame build-up. UNM elected not to play the national anthem or have the team run through the cheerleaders and onto the field when emerging from the locker room.
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The pregame weather that forced the stadium's temporary evacuation squeezed the timeline, pushing kickoff back to 8:25 p.m. from its original 8 p.m. start. Eck said he and the NDSU staff essentially made a joint decision to skip the pomp and circumstance to get the game going as quickly as possible.
