The University of New Mexico women’s basketball team hit the road Monday to begin its 2020-21 Mountain West journey.
It promises to a be a long, strange trip.
The Lobos (3-0) are scheduled to play their league-opening two-game series Thursday and Saturday at Nevada and will do the majority of their game preparations in Reno. Coach Mike Bradbury said his team will practice Tuesday and Wednesday at Nevada’s Lawlor Events Center. UNM cannot practice or play at home because of New Mexico’s coronavirus restrictions.
Bradbury released his players for Christmas after their 120-66 victory at Arkansas Pine Bluff on Dec. 17, requiring them to return to Albuquerque by the evening of Dec. 25. Everyone arrived on time, he said, and began a holiday regimen of COVID-19 testing.
“We’ve all been tested every day,” Bradbury said Monday. “No positives.”
The Lobos won’t be back in New Mexico for a while. After Saturday’s finale at Nevada, UNM will travel directly to Logan, Utah, where it is scheduled to play Utah State on Jan. 7-9. Details for the Lobos’ series against UNLV, scheduled for Jan. 14-16 in Albuquerque, have not yet been determined.
The bizarre nature of this season has forced Bradbury and his staff to adjust on the fly. That includes game-planning, which will not be nearly as in-depth as normal for Thursday’s conference opener.
“Nevada has a lot of new personnel,” Bradbury said, “which makes things challenging. But we’re honestly not ready to spend too much time focusing on what our opponents do. We’re still focused on us, trying to get better at what we do.”
Nevada (4-1) has been forced to navigate a few bumps in the road, as well. The Wolf Pack’s season opener against San Francisco was canceled and a MWC series set for Dec. 4-6 at Air Force was postponed due to COVID-19 issues within the Falcons’ program. Nevada’s revamped schedule included back-to-back wins at Sacramento State in mid-December.
Asked what his team needs to do to be successful in this week’s conference series, Bradbury chuckled.
“Probably score a bunch of points,” he said. “It takes months to put in an effective defense and we’ve only had a couple weeks of real practice. Our options on defense are very limited, so we may end up in a lot of high-scoring games. Hopefully, we can keep making shots.”
UNM enters Mountain West play leading the nation in scoring average at 103.7 points per game.
