Let’s learn things about the Lobos before they clash with the Golden Eagles on Friday evening.
Name: University of New Mexico
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
I’m bad at New Mexico geography: It’s kiiiiiinda center-ish of the state, right at the junction of I-25 coming south from Colorado and I-40 going east/west between Arizona and Texas.
Founded: The concept of the university dates back before New Mexico was actually a state in the union, as the territorial legislature approved the creation in 1889. I can’t track down when they actually held the first classes, but 1) Hodgin Hall, the first official campus building, finished construction in 1892, and the first graduates of UNM completed their degree work in 1894.
Enrollment: 25,948 students for Spring 2025 semester, with 16,110 undergraduate students.
Notable Alumni: Deb Haaland, the 54th Secretary of the Department of the Interior and the first Native American to hold a United States Cabinet position and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin. Are there more than that? Sure, but I don’t think I need to go on and on about so-and-so lieutenant governor or so-and-so MLB player.
Nickname: Lobos
Why “Lobos”? Other than there are probably a lot of wolves in the state and lobo is the Spanish word for wolf? It seems that the editor of the student newspaper suggested it at a student council meeting in 1920. From GoLobos.com, the official UNM athletics website
On Sept. 22, 1920, sophomore George S. Bryan, editor of the U.N.M. Weekly and student manager of the football team, was present at a Student Council meeting for the purpose of suggesting that the University teams be given a mascot name as at that time many universities had mascot names for their teams. Bryan suggested Lobo, the Spanish word for wolf, as the nickname. The name was enthusiastically received. The Oct. 1 issue of the student paper said, “The Lobo is respected for his cunning, feared for his prowess, and is the leader of the pack. It is the ideal name for the Varsity boys who go forth to battle for the glory of the school. All together now; fifteen rahs for the LOBOS.”
Did they ever have a live wolf mascot? Sure did, because apparently Bruno Dieckman, Class of 1902, thought that putting a leash on a wolf was a good idea back in 1920 not long after they made the nickname official.
Why did they stop? BECAUSE THE WOLF BIT A CHILD in the most predictable bit of lore to have ever happened. Lobo Louie, the Guy In Suit mascot has been around since the 1960s, and Lobo Lucy, the female variant, was created in the 1980s. Are Louie and Lucy in a relationship together? Siblings? I’ve got no answers for you here.
Preseason Poll: New Mexico was picked to finish second in the Mountain West this season, landing behind Boise State as the Broncos got 19 of the 26 first place votes from selected media members. The Lobos did snag one of those first place votes, but still ended up 43 points behind Boise.
This Season: The Lobos started their season off making a declaration that perhaps that MW preseason poll was inaccurate, downing preseason #22 UCLA, 72-64, in Las Vegas on the first Friday of the regular season. They dropped games as non-con play went along, falling at St. John’s, on a neutral floor to Arizona State, and losing a home game in their in-state rivalry series with New Mexico State on the first Saturday of December….. and then they went a month and a half without a loss.
That includes beating eventual NCAA tournament team and Atlantic 10 co-champion VCU and starting Mountain West play with a mark of 6-0. After getting clipped by one point on the road against San Jose State, UNM rattled off eight more wins in a row, starting off that run with a home win over league favorite Boise State. That had them at 14-1 in the league and established the Lobos as both a contender to win the league as well as earn an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. They did both of those things, finishing 17-3 to best Colorado State by one game in the conference standings before getting the business end of the season series with Boise State after losing to the Broncos in the conference tournament semifinals.
KenPom.com Ranking: #41 after starting the season at #62
T-Rank Ranking: #40 after starting the season at #57
Stats Leaders
Points: Donovan Dent, 20.6 ppg (best in the Mountain West)
Rebounds: Nelly Junior Joseph, 11.2 rpg (best in the Mountain West)
Assists: Donovan Dent, 6.4 apg
Head Coach: Richard Pitino, in his fourth season at New Mexico and his 13th season as a Division 1 head coach after stops at FIU and Minnesota. Yes, he is Rick Pitino’s son, yes, that means he lost to his dad’s team back in November, and yes, Rick will have to decide between providing a scouting report to his son or the team in his conference or merely staying a neutral party in this contest. The younger Pitino has a record of 87-48 with New Mexico and 246-185 overall in Division 1.
Bigs? You saw what kind of rebounding numbers that Nelly Junior Joseph puts up, so yeah, they’ve got a big guy. The Nigerian transfer from Iona — yes, this means he used to play for Richard’s father when he was with the Gaels — is listed at 6’10” and 240 pounds. He is one of the best defensive rebounders in the country, ranking #10 in rate according to KenPom.com. Joseph is no slouch on the offensive glass either, as he helps his team to 3.4 second chances per game on average. He is pretty much a traditional center, as he has just 16 three-point attempts in five seasons of college basketball.
Joseph is not the only big guy in the rotation. Fellow 6’10”, 240 pound chap Jovan Milicevic is a freshman on this team mostly coming off the bench. He averages just 4.0 points and 2.1 rebounds in 12 minutes a night, but the point of the story is that New Mexico can still throw size at you if Joseph gets into foul trouble or just needs a breather. I said “mostly” off the bench, because Milicevic did start three times when redshirt senior and Dayton transfer Mustapha Amzil (6’9”, 215) missed some time. The big Finn seems to picture himself as a stretch four with 133 three-point attempts on the season, but Amzil is shooting just .287 from out there this season and just .289 in 65 career games with the Lobos.
6’9”, 220 pound junior Filip Borovicanin has been a most every night starter for New Mexico, and yes: That means they start three guys at 6’9” or taller. He’ll be helpful on the glass, and appears to be better in terms of rebounding rate on the defensive glass than Amzil if not overall totals. The big Serbian has added a three-point shot to his repertoire since transferring over from Arizona last offseason, but he hasn’t found consistent made three-pointers quite yet at just 30% on the season. Then again, Borovicanin is shooting 9-for-19 (47%) in UNM’s seven toughest games of the season by KenPom.com’s measurements, so maybe his light just shines the brightest on the biggest stages.
Shooters? Generally speaking, no. The Lobos connect on just 34% of their long range attempts as a team, which is a middle-ish of the country success rate. It would seem that Richard Pitino knows it’s not a strength for his team, and so New Mexico just doesn’t shoot it that much. They’re #334 in the country in terms of what percentage of their shots come from behind the arc. If Marquette has a day where the shots are falling, then it might end up being hard for the Lobos to keep up.
With that said, they’re not bereft of ability. Leading scorer Donovan Dent is hitting just over 41% of his three-pointers this season, which means he picked right up where he was last year at 38%. However, he only attempts two per game. He can score pretty easily inside the arc — 53% overall on twos in his three seasons with New Mexico — so Marquette is going to have to find a middle ground between making him settle for shots he has shown he can hit, letting him get inside where he can put it up and in pretty well, or forcing him to give it up… while he posts the 23rd best assist rate in the country.
Dent’s backcourt mate is Tru Washington, and the sophomore from Arizona has stepped up his long range shooting this season. He’s hitting 35% on the year, although Washington is mired in a 5-for-28 (18%) shooting slump in UNM’s last seven games. The slump is the good news, the bad news is that means he was shooting over 40% before that on 3.7 attempts per game.
What To Watch For: I can’t help but wonder if New Mexico’s defensive rebounding prowess is something of a mirage. At a glance, Nelly Junior Joseph is a wizard at helping the Lobos end possessions after one shot, and as a result, the entire team is #21 in the country in defensive rebounding rate per KenPom.com. This seems like something of a problem in general, although Marquette’s offensive attack doesn’t really rely on getting a bunch of second chances.
But I keep staring at New Mexico’s adjusted tempo ranking on the KenPom site as well as their average possession length.
Fourth fastest team in the country in tempo, fifth shortest possession length.
How much of “New Mexico is very good at defensive rebounding” is just “New Mexico gets mad if their offensive possession goes longer than 15 seconds?” What if the reason that they really don’t shoot that many threes is because their entire goal is to go flying down the court in transition no matter what and thus the best shots you get from that attack come from going straight to the rim? What if New Mexico’s only great at defensive rebounding because their transition attack makes teams abandon trying for second chances in order to slow down the Lobos down coming the other way?
They’re #19 in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, so if that’s what’s going on here, you can’t knock it as a system. Heck, at a glance, going nine million miles an hour gives UNM a strategic advantage in tempo in Mountain West play, as 6-26 Fresno State is the only other team that’s in the top 150 in the country in tempo per KenPom.
As long as Marquette can weather the New Mexico transition attack, whether that’s finding a way to actually get offensive rebounds, slow them in transition, or just make a lot of shots to make the Lobos take it out of bounds regularly, then this game could end being determined by turnovers. Both teams are pretty great at generating turnovers with KenPom.com ranking both squads in the top 35 in terms of rate. They’re only one percentage point apart, so they’re pretty similar even if MU has the ranking advantage. The catch is that Marquette’s much better — 13.5% — at holding onto the ball on the offensive end than New Mexico — 15.6% — is on their scoring side. It’s possible that the X Factor in this game is how many times you hear play-by-play man Spero Dedes end a “a steal by” with the name of either Stevie Mitchell (#10 in the country in steal rate) or Tru Washington (#35).
Finally, expect to hear a lot about this game during the broadcast pitched as a battle between Donovan Dent and Kam Jones. Great lead guards, great at scoring, great at setting up their teammates, etc., etc., etc. There’s a lot of comparisons to be made between the two, and the game could very easily boil down to which of the two has the better performance in Cleveland. The big difference is that Dent gets to the free throw line way more often than Jones does, almost to the point of shooting half as many free throws as he does two-point attempts. There’s a version of this game — and it’s not a pleasant one — where the Golden Eagles get killed at the foul line, both by way of points going on the scoreboard along with foul trouble up and down the lineup. Nelly Junior Joseph and Mustapha Amzil are both pretty great at drawing fouls, and if Marquette is giving up silly fouls to the New Mexico transition attack, things could end up turning pretty ugly.
All Time Series: New Mexico leads, 1-0. The only meeting in program history came back in December 2013, as the Golden Eagles took a 75-68 loss in a neutral site game in Las Vegas. Marquette led 60-57 with a little less than seven minutes to go, and then gave up a 13-2 run to the Lobos to trail by eight heading to the final minute. The loss snapped a two game winning streak for MU and dropped them to 7-5 on the season, and they wouldn’t win consecutive games again until mid-February.