ALBUQUERQUE -- University of New Mexico men's basketball player Kendall Williams is known more for his offense than his defense.

The guard is third on the team in scoring, averaging 11.8 points and is the team's assists leader at 4.3 a contest.

But on Saturday in The Pit against the TCU Horned Frogs, Williams got credit from his coach for his defense. The UNM sophomore shut down TCU's leading scorer, Hank Thorns, and the Lobos won their second-straight Mountain West Conference contest, 71-54, before a capacity crowd of 15,212.

The win improves the Lobos to 17-4 overall and 3-2 in conference play. The Frogs dropped to 12-8, 2-3.

Thorns was held to eight points, five below his average.

"I thought the key was Kendall Williams," said UNM head coach Steve Alford. "I thought the job he did on Thorns made it really difficult on him. That's probably as good defensively as Kendall has been since he has been here."

UNM struggled on offense because of TCU's athleticism. Even when scoring runs of 14-4 late in the first half and 12-2 at the start of the second half pushed the Lobos' lead to 45-30 with 15:28 left in the game, the Horned Frogs responded. An 11-2 run cut UNM's lead to 47-39.

"They've made big comebacks," Alford said of TCU. "We knew how explosive they could be and then they started making some 3s once we got up 15 or so."

Jamal Fenton stopped the bleeding with seven straight points on a pair of lay-ups and a 3-pointer, pushing the lead to 54-45.

"He's been shooting the ball well," Alford said. "He knows he has got the ability to shoot. As long as he has good shots, we want him shooting the ball."

Someone else who found good shots was Tony Snell. The Lobos' leading scorer broke out of his slump with a game-high 18 points. Williams added 14 while Phillip McDonald joined Fenton with nine.

UNM won the rebounding game 36-27, but more importantly grabbed 10 offensive rebounds, which led to 13 second-chance points. TCU had just three offensive boards.

After losing to San Diego State and UNLV, the Lobos knew how important it was to finish the first half of conference play strong. They took care of business with home wins over Colorado State and now TCU.

The Lobos have added motivation with San Diego State's first conference loss on Saturday, at CSU, moving UNM a half-game closer to the top of the Mountain West standings.

That makes upcoming road games at Air Force and Boise State more important.

"Going against Air Force is a big game for us," McDonald said. "These next games are really important now that San Diego State just dropped one against CSU, and that puts us in the hunt again. We were one game behind from first place and if we can get these next two in the win column, we'll be in good shape."