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Ugly Road Win Sure Tastes Sweet: Cowboys Pay For Their 23 Turnovers
Jan 17, 2010 (Albuquerque Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
LARAMIE, Wyo. -- It was like a grandmother who keeps trying to force her stale cookies on the youngsters. Eventually they break down and accept one.
Or in the case of the University of New Mexico men's basketball team, it accepted about a couple dozen.
On Saturday afternoon, the Wyoming Cowboys did their best granny impersonation, basically handing the Lobos a 70-68 Mountain West Conference victory. The Cowboys coughed up 23 turnovers, went 11-of-19 from the foul line -- shooting 12 fewer than their nation-leading average -- and went just 25-of-59 (42.4 percent) from the floor.
It took the Lobos (16-3, 2-2) most of the afternoon to capitalize, but they finally did in the final five minutes of a choppy, sloppy affair.
But while it didn't go down smoothly, in the end those stale cookies tasted pretty sweet.
"It was ugly, there's no doubt about that," said UNM sophomore guard Phillip McDon- ald, who snapped out of his shooting slump with a 6-of-11 performance and hit all three of his team's 3-pointers.
"But we really needed a road win. After losing at home to UNLV, we had to get one back on the road. This one tastes pretty good."
The Pokes certainly were passing out treats all day, but the Lobos had something to do with that. UNM raided the cookie jar on a number of occasions, causing five of those Wyoming miscues by drawing charging fouls.
Sophomore post A.J. Hardeman picked up two of them, which kept the Cowboys from taking it to the paint as often as usual.
"Coach tells me every day that I'm not a legit center, so I've been getting more aggressive," said the 6-foot-8 Hardeman, who had a career-high 18 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals. "I've learned a lot from Ro (Martinez), watching how hard he plays."
Martinez, a senior wing, played his tail off as usual. But he again struggled from the outside, going 0-for-6 from 3-point range. UNM was 3-of-19 from behind the arc with McDonald going 3-of-8.
The poor shooting cost the Lobos early as Wyoming rolled to a 20-12 lead. Hardeman led the Lobos back with a pair of put-backs to help UNM grab a 28-27 lead.
Wyoming led 35-28 in the opening 43 seconds of the second half but they had a series of big turnovers that prevented them from padding the advantage even more.
McDonald kept the Lobos in it, hitting his three 3s in the next seven minutes.
There were seven lead changes and three ties in an eight-minute stretch in which neither team led by more than two. But the Pokes kept coughing it up, and the Lobos finally took advantage on a dunk by Will Brown off a Darington Hobson feed. Martinez followed with a short bank shot and Dairese Gary had a reverse layup to make it 64-58 with less than four minutes remaining.
After Wyoming's Adam Waddell hit a pair of free throws, Hardeman had the play of the game with a huge follow-slam off a Gary missed drive.
"I felt the momentum turn on that," Hardeman said. "It felt really good."
The Cowboys still had opportunities, but couldn't knock down free throws. Former New Mexico State point guard JayDee Luster went 0-for-5 from the line -- four coming in the last three minutes.
"There are a number of ways to look at it," said Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer. "The way I choose to look at it is we had the No. 15 team in the country (last week) on the ropes. We had opportunities to win the game, and it just wasn't meant to be. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot."
Hobson shot himself in the foot on a number of occasions, but he did have 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists with four turnovers on a 5-for-13 outing. McDonald scored 15 while Martinez had seven points and eight rebounds.
Afam Muojeke led the Cowboys with 16 points but was 5-of-17 from the floor.
The Lobos shot 43.3 percent from the field and had 18 turnovers against just 10 assists.
"It was two really young basketball teams fighting like crazy for a win," said UNM coach Steve Alford. "Sometimes the game got ugly. There were a lot of turnovers, I think that's what made the game ugly -- both teams turned it over a lot."
To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.abqjournal.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
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