“I am very pleased with the
guys’ efforts,” said Alford. “One of the hardest things in
athletics is when
you get knocked down and see how you are going to react and our
guys really
reacted even better than what we had hoped. I really thought we
defended and
guarded well tonight, top to bottom, and we got everyone in.”
New Mexico
(16-4, 2-2 MWC)
had a solid defensive effort, forcing CSU into 20 turnovers
while holding the
Rams to 16-43 shooting (37%) from the field and 3-of-14 shooting
from the
three-point line.
UNM was
absolutely
dominating in the paint, out-scoring the Rams 38-18 in the lane
and 17-9 on
second chance points.
“I think it’s pretty clear to see—even
today, even though it
has only been a few days—guys are hungrier,” said Gordon. “We’re
getting to
loose balls that we weren’t getting to in the last two games. He
really got on
us about be tougher, but it’s obviously paying off.”
Senior Drew Gordon finished
with his 11th double-double of the season, scoring a
game-high 13
points and pulling in 14 rebounds. Phillip McDonald came off the
bench to score
12 points on 5-of-8 shooting hitting 2-of-4 treys as UNM’s bench
scored 42
points for the game – compared to CSU’s bench which totaled just
five points
from its bench.
UNM lead from
the outset,
opening the game with a 10-4 run capped by a trey by Tony Snell,
who finished
with 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting. The Rams found their shooting
touch soon after
and kept New Mexico from extending its lead. But the Lobos
pushed the lead out
to 22-12 with just over 10 minutes left in the first half.
With five
minutes in the
half, UNM embarked on an 8-0 run to push the lead out to 43-21
with 2:56 left
in the half.
CSU would cut
the lead down
to 47-29 at halftime and opened the second half on a 5-0 run,
but Alford cut
the run off by calling a time out and reading the riot act to
his team, getting
into his players faces during the break. It would not the last
time he did so
in the game.
“He was in my
face all game
today,” said Fenton. “These past two days he has been preaching
about how the
next 13 days are going to be the hardest time of our lives, but
it’s going to
be the best time of our lives, too, because the coaching staff
is really going
to push us to become better and win the Championship.”
UNM was able to
hold the
Rams at arm’s length but unable to really seize the initiative
until A.J.
Hardeman was called for a foul then whistled for a technical
foul immediately
after to foul out of the game.
The technical
seemed to
shake UNM out of its funk and they ran away with the game from
there, closing
the game on a 17-3 run.
““It was tough
for A.J. He
had a tough night,” said Gordon. “Even though he had a tough
break, other
people were able to pick him up and keep his spirits and the
team’s spirit
high. That (the technical) definitely helped us. We rallied
behind it and we
stepped up our defense even more.”
Alford
said the convincing win was good for his team.
“We
have been on them and have challenged them and told them that
this was going to
be the 13 days of challenge,” said Alford. “We are now at day
two of 13. They
know they have to wake up tomorrow and attend. They have to
continue this beat
and it is a four game stretch before we get to that mid point
and before we get
to where we have a week off.”
“We
have told them that we don’t care if they are sore or banged up;
this is what
basketball is at this level,” Alford said. ”You have got to find
a way and
tonight they did that. We have two days to get ready for a TCU
team that is
playing well. They (Texas Christian) have won two in a row and now I have to
watch them on
television against Air Force. They are athletic and big and they
do a lot of
good things. We have a team coming in here that has a little bit
of confidence
so we have to play well on Saturday, but this is a good start to
the week.”