Junior Tony Snell scored a
game-high 25 points on a career high 22 field goal attempts and
pulled down
five rebounds while fellow junior Kendall Williams added 17
points – going 13
of 14 from the free throw line - as UNM outscored Davidson 55-36
in the
decisive second half.
“Obviously
extremely proud
of our basketball team,” said UNM head coach Steve Alford after
the game.
“Davidson is an outstanding team. We knew they would be good
from watching tape
from last year. But they’re even better than advertised. To get
down 16 to a
team like this and come back in the last 14 minutes… I’m just
extremely proud
of this team,”
Davidson jumped
out to a
10-0 lead as UNM missed their first five field goals and didn’t
score their
first points until the 16:15 mark. The Wildcats jumped out to
the early lead
using pinpoint accuracy on three pointers that seemed to stun
the Lobos and
quieted The Pit crowd.
“We were a
little stagnant
in the first half,” said Alford. “Their three shooting kind of
shell shocked
the team a little bit and we got a little frustrated
offensively.”
Davidson would
push the lead
all the way out to 25-9 at the 11:40 mark before the Lobos began
to respond.
UNM rallied and
slowly began
to trim the lead, cutting the Wildcats advantage to 37-31 with
1:34 left in the
half. But Davidson closed the half with an 8-0 run to take a
45-31 lad into
halftime.
New Mexico
opened on a 5-0
run in the second half that was short circuited when the
Wildcat’s Jake Cohen
hit a 3-pointer at the 18:06 mark. But the Lobos continued to
claw, cutting the
lead to 54-45 before managed another four-point bump to increase
the lead to
58-45 with 14:18 left in the game.
From there UNM
went in a
16-3 run fueled by free throw shooting and an increased
rebounding presence.
The Lobos tied the game at 61-61 on a backdoor lay up by
freshman Cleveland Thomas with 9:17 left in the game.
But Davidson
remained game,
and the lead changed hands four more times before UNM claimed
the advantage at
70-68 on a pair of free throws by Williams
UNM pushed the
lad to 81-75
but the Wildcats hit a pair of threes down the stretch to keep
the game in
question. UNM finally landed the knockout blow when Williams hit
a pair of free
throws ti make the score 85-81 UNM with seven seconds left.
Brooks then
airballed the ensuing 3-point attempt and the Lobos then ran the
clock out.
“I think the
key in the
second half was the play of our freshmen,” said Alford. “Banyard
and Thomas
were tremendous. They gave us a huge lift in a difficult game
for freshmen to
play in. I thought they energized us.”
Alford also had
high praise
for The Pit crowd, which he said was a big key to the comeback.
“The crowd was
phenomenal – I
just can’t say enough good things about our crowd,” said Alford
“Our kids were
playing hard but we were jst getting ourselves beat. But the
crowd never gave
up and just continued to work for us. Then we got in a bit of a
rhythm and the
crowd went to a whole other level. It was a great atmosphere.”