Lobos fans celebrate and throw newspapers into the air Wednesday night as UNM’s starting lineup is announced before the game against Colorado State in The Pit.
Lobos fans celebrate and throw newspapers into the air Wednesday night as UNM’s starting lineup is announced before the game against Colorado State in The Pit.
In his second season as the University of New Mexico’s men’s basketball coach, he has pulled the rabbit out of a hat and injected life, passion and excitement back into The Pit. Wednesday’s near-sellout crowd in University Arena watched his Lobos push their record to 13-0 and start conference play with a comfortable win over Colorado State.
At the moment, the sky is bluer, food tastes better and there’s a sense of community pride knowing Lobo basketball is, at long last, trending.
UNM can have its success in football, win a national title in cross-country, send its baseball and soccer teams to the postseason and make improvements to various facilities, but nothing comes close to the groundswell of pride men’s basketball can have on a city and state whose sports existence is inextricably linked with that team.
To anyone who has endured the steady decline of the program the past eight years, sitting in The Pit and seeing nearly every seat filled was a sight for sore eyes. What’s more, the decibel levels during the game reached a point that hasn’t been heard for years.
More is sure to come, too. If (and it’s a big if) the Lobos can beat Wyoming on Saturday, they’ll likely climb inside the top 20 when Monday’s polls are updated. If they manage to beat Fresno State next week, they’ll come home for their Jan. 7 game against UNLV knowing a sellout crowd is virtually a sure thing.
Make no mistake, the Lobos will eventually lose a few games and the fanciful romance of an unblemished record will end, but this team is certainly good enough to end the program’s postseason dry spell and at least give it a puncher’s chance to do what New Mexico State did last season with its NCAA Tournament appearance.
We’ve seen a couple of flashy moments from the Lobos since Steve Alford’s heyday a decade ago. Craig Neal’s first team made the big dance, and Paul Weir’s 2019-20 team started 15-3 before imploding because of off-court issues.
A sign that things are different came half an hour before Wednesday’s game. With the parking lot packed and two-thirds of the arena already settled in, the team’s pregame stretch went from its usual emotionless endeavor into something more.
As the players came down the ramp for a pregame stretch, fans greeted them with a thoughtful standing O. Clearly it was a nod that seemed to say “thank you” for cracking the Top 25, for getting fans excited again, for making home games a must-see activity, and affording all of us the opportunity to talk about Lobo basketball in the present tense rather than reminiscing about fading memories of the good ol’ days.
Pitino came to New Mexico saying the same things everyone at UNM does; he marveled at The Pit’s rich history and gushed about its loyal fans. Until the last two weeks, he’d never seen The Pit the way most of us have: An intimidating home court with an unparalleled history of being feared and respected.
If you were around in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and first 12 years of the 2000s, you remember the rush of squeezing into the building and letting the fans take over. You remember it being so loud you couldn’t hear the person next to you.
For the better part of the last decade that has rarely, if ever, been the case. Until now.
After molding one of the country’s top backcourts with guards Jaelen House, Jamal Mashburn Jr., K.J. Jenkins and Donovan Dent, Pitino found the missing pieces with two 240-pound low post monster trucks.
While he did have success in his previous stop at Minnesota, he’s finding winning in the Mountain West is a lot easier than in Big Ten country. Adding missing pieces at Minnesota merely made you competitive. In the Mountain West, it takes you from a 13-19 team to the Top 25 and national attention.
Perhaps most impressive of all is Pitino has turned back time and wiped the memory of the fans’ wait-and-see approach, replacing it with screaming pride and a true grassroots effort to put UNM back on the basketball map.
Magic man? You bet.
Give it up for a coach who managed to leave you craving more, for being brave enough to put your heart on the line after years of apathy.
Be proud, Lobos fans. This team really does seem to be that good.
