The Lobos led 29-20 at halftime then surged
ahead on the
strength of a 14-2 run that climaxed when Tony Snell hit three
three-pointers
in a row to give the Lobos a 43-22 lead with 16:16 left in the
game.
“I was trying to be aggressive,” said Snell,
who scored a
game-high 17 points on 5-8 shooting from 3-point range. “I heard
the crowd
going, so that got me going. (They) kind of backed off me, so I
tried to shoot
the ball and be aggressive.”
The Lobos got a double-double from Cameron Bairstow, who scored 16 and pulled
down 11 rebounds
while Alex Kirk added 15 points and seven rebounds. By contrast
the San Diego State bigs, J.J. O’Brien, Winston Shepard and Deshawn Stephens
were held to
zero and four points respectively seven points collectively on 3
of 15 shooting
and seven rebounds between the three of them. O’Brien was
particularly
ineffective, scoring no points and getting no rebounds while
shooting 0 of 6
from the field.
“We kind of talked about kind of going at
them,” said Kirk.
“I’m not going to say they’re undersized, but they’re definitely
smaller than
us in height and weight. It opened up a lot of things. Cam
attacked them right
way, we kind of got rolling the rest of the way.”
Cam Bairstow was important early as New Mexico
(28-5) built
a nine point lead in the first half and took it to halftime,
leading the Aztecs
29-20.
UNM managed to take a tight game and blow it
open in the
final six minutes, outscoring SDSU10-2 the rest of the half to
take a
commanding lead.
The roll continued to begin the half and the
Lobos would
outscore the Aztecs 24-4 in a ten minute stretch spanning almost
10 minutes.
San Diego St. would cut the Lobo lead down to
nine at 55-46 with
a Chase Tapley jumper at the 4:38 mark of the second half. But the
Aztecs would
get no closer as UNM closed out effectively.
UNM managed to hold the Aztecs to just 26%
shooting (8 of
30) in the first half and 31% shooting (20 of 64) overall. San Diego St. (22-10)
was especially
poor shooting the 3-pointer, going just 5 of 21 for the game.
The Lobos by contrast shot 48% in the crucial
second half,
hitting 12 of 25 shots. UNM only shot 7 of 19 on 3-pointers, but
the trey came
at critical times. New Mexico also made 11 of 16 free throws and
out rebounded
SDSU 41-33 and outscored the Aztecs 16-9 on second chance points.