BYU impresses Lobos rookie coach
January 31st, 2008, 6:18 pm Hobbies Ideas
PROVO First-year New Mexico basketball coach Steve Alford got his first taste of coaching against BYU, with his Lobos getting outshot and outplayed in the Cougars’ 83-66 victory Saturday afternoon at the Marriott Center.
The result: UNM’s season-worst shooting percentage and its season-worst loss.
“I think we got outplayed in every aspect of the game,” said Alford, who faced BYU for the first time in his 17-year career, which includes D-I stops at Southwest Missouri State and Iowa.
Well, not every aspect, as the Lobos bested the Cougars at the line (76.2 percent to 55.2), in turnovers (allowing six while forcing 13 BYU miscues), and steals (nine to three).
But in the other key statistical categories, the Lobos were lacking considerably, as Alford acknowledged 50.9 to 34.4 percent shooting from the field, 81.3 percent to 33.3 percent on 3-pointers, 42 to 34 on rebounding, 25 to 7 assists, and 4 to 2 on blocks.
BYU came out with guns blazing, while UNM made only four of its first 18 attempts.
“They have big-time shooters,” Alford said of the Cougars. “They haven’t been shooting well recently, but today they shot well. They clicked today.”
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Alford, the former All-American guard at Indiana, complimented BYU counterpart Dave Rose and the Cougars.
“Dave has done a good job and has a great program,” he said. “They played at a higher level, and we had no answers for them. … They’re a measuring stick for us.”
His post-game comments outside the Lobo locker room ended up being a five-minute cameo-like appearance that Alford himself cut short about the same amount of court time New Mexico standout J.R. Giddens saw in the second half after BYU rolled to a 20-point advantage at intermission.
Alford said Giddens’ second-half absence was “a coaches decision just my decision not to play him,” as UNM’s season leader in scoring and rebounding tied his own season-low of four points on 2-of-8 shooting and tallied just six rebounds, two assists and a block.
The Marriott Center loss is nothing to be held against Alford alone, as others have fared similarly of late. The Cougars have racked up their second 40-plus-games homecourt winning streak of the past half-decade. The current string the nation’s second-longest is now at 42 and counting.
New Mexico has now lost five straight to BYU overall the Lobos’ first five-loss skid against the Cougars in a quarter-century. And UNM has fallen eight straight times in Provo, with the Lobos’ last Marriott Center victory coming in February 2000.
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