AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.—The New Mexico Lobos wasted no time in applying their lesson.
After watching a 15-0 lead wither away in the first half, the Lobos came out of a halftime tongue-lashing from coach Steve Alford with a newfound determination that helped them hand the Air Force Falcons their 11th straight loss, 76-66 Wednesday night.
“Coach was really upset with our urgency and our defense, and he was really hard on us about it. He wanted us to get stops, and we weren’t doing that,” said Roman Martinez, who tied his career high with 20 points for the Lobos (16-9, 7-3 Mountain West Conference).
“Fifteen-to-nothing, we did relax a little bit,” Martinez acknowledged.
After missing their first six shots, the Falcons hit 13-of-14 to grab a 37-33 halftime lead.
“We lost our concentration when we were up 15-0. We subbed, and our bench wasn’t ready,” Alford said. “I’ve got to give them a lot of credit. When you get down 15-0, you can easily cave in, and they didn’t and actually had the lead at the half.”
Not that the Falcons cherished climbing out of such a big hole.
“We obviously don’t like to have to flip a switch like that,” said Falcons forward Andrew Henke, who scored 19 points to go with Matt Holland’s 20.
The Falcons wished they could have done the same about-face in the second half, however, when the Lobos opened with a 12-3 run to take control at 45-40.
This time, they never recovered as the Lobos shot 71 percent from the floor thanks to a renewed effort to go inside, where they either got high-percentage shots or were fouled and went to the line.
Tony Danridge added 16 points for New Mexico, and Phillip McDonald had 12.
The Lobos didn’t trail over the final 16:49 and outscored the Falcons 23-14 from the free-throw line. New Mexico went to the line 36 times, twice as much as the Falcons (9-14, 0-10).
“It’s tough to counter 25 free throws in the second half,” Henke said. “It seemed like every time they missed a shot or we made a good defensive play, they got to the line and made the free throws.”
“Yeah, it was really tough,” Holland agreed. “They did a good job of getting their posts in there low. Usually we do a good job of guarding their big guys before they get in there, and they really just pounded it in there the whole second half and got to the free-throw line nonstop.”
The Falcons dropped to 7-8 at Clune Arena this season after going 68-6 at home over the previous five seasons. Air Force is 0-10 in conference play for the first time since 1993-94, when the academy lost its first 12 games in the Western Athletic Conference.
“We know we can be good,” Henke said. “We haven’t been good for 40 minutes.”
Despite picking up two quick fouls, Henke brought the Falcons back from their 15-0 hole almost by himself. He scored 14 straight points for Air Force and pulled the Falcons to 19-16 with a three-point play. But he took a breather after that and watched his teammates continue to whittle away.
“I’m very pleased with their effort at that stretch,” Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said. “A lot of teams would have folded, and we battled back.”
“It was a shame that we were down 15-0 to have us wake up and start playing hard,” Holland said.
