Around the Mountain: UNM's Tru Washington earns weekly award, but is he destined for Defensive Player of the Year?

Tru Washington said one of the best feelings he’s had in basketball was the split second between the ball leaving his hand Sunday afternoon with 9 seconds remaining, knowing the 3-point shot he just fired up was going in and just waiting for the sound to come.

The UNM sophomore guard hit what would prove to be the game-winning 3-pointer in the closing moments of Sunday’s 82-79 Lobos win over Utah State to take firm control of first place in the Mountain West standings. As the shot went in, the sold-out Pit crowd erupted into a deafening frenzy.

“That feeling was crazy — when it was in the air,” Washington told the 610 KNML-AM’s Opening Drive show on Monday morning. “It felt good leaving my hand. That’s like a different type of feeling when you know it’s going to go in and the crowd is fixing to go crazy.”

For Washington, the career-high 25 point, four-3-pointer game Sunday and a 15-point game in last Wednesday’s Lobos win over Wyoming helped earn him on Monday his first career Mountain West Player of the Week award.

Offense, and scoring specifically, are often musts for those awards.

But make no mistake, Washington’s offense, while a viable, emerging threat for UNM, remains secondary to his first passion: shutting down opposing players.

“I feel like first half, I kind of like, let the point guard get what he want,” Washington said of Utah State’s Drake Allen on Sunday night. “You know, second half, I had to cut off his water and play my brand of defense.”

That mindset, along with the five rebounds, four steals and two blocked shots in the Utah State win to go along with his very high-energy, in-your-head on ball defense has Washington becoming very well known by opposing coaches in the Mountain West.

And it might have him very much in the running for a Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year.

Since the Lobos essentially made a pretty permanent switch to having Washington guard the primary ball handler of every team after he missed the Dec. 18 win over VCU in the Pit, the Lobos have had the No. 6 (out of 364 Division I teams) ranked defensive efficiency rating according to BartTorvik.com.

And while not alone in the conversation for top defender, Washington is pretty safely in as one of the five players who will be on the league’s All-Defense team.

As of today, here is what my all-defense team would look like, fully aware there are at least a couple of players who many will feel are being snubbed.

My MW All-Defense Team as of Feb. 17:

Listed alphabetically

G/F Nique Clifford, Sr., Colorado State

G Mason Falslev, So., Utah State

F Magoon Gwath, Fr., San Diego State

C Nelly Junior Joseph, Sr., UNM

G Tru Washington, So., UNM

Players of the week

As mentioned, Washington was the Mountain West Player of the Week, giving the UNM Lobos their fourth consecutive MW award and eighth this season, both program records.

The MW record for POWs in a season is nine (BYU in 2010-11, which was also the only other time in 26 years that a team had four POWs in a row).

Meanwhile, Gwath, the shot-blocking San Diego State 7-footer, won the Freshman of the Week award on Monday, his third in the past month.

Poll position

No Mountain West team was ranked in Monday’s new Associated Press Top 25 poll, though the UNM Lobos are one spot away and made a significant leap in the “others receiving votes” section.

The Lobos’ 117 points (up from 40 last week) is 20 behind No. 25 Louisville.

Tracking the blowouts

The Mountain West has had 18 of its 80 games (22.5%) end with a margin of victory of 20 points or more — the total KenPom.com sets as meeting the “blowout” definition.

That is the fourth-highest percentage of 31 conferences.

Most 20-point MW wins:

5 — Colorado State

4 — Boise State

3 — New Mexico

2 — SDSU, Utah State

1 — Nevada, UNLV

Three for me

Here are three games I’m looking forward to watching this week, listed chronologically:

Nevada (15-10, 7-7 MW) at Colorado State (16-9, 10-4 MW): Tuesday, 7 p.m. MST, TheMW.com — The Rams won the first game in Reno, but that was back on Dec. 21, starting a four-game skid for the Wolf Pack to open league play. They’re now on a four-game win streak. Both teams believe the can be top five seeds in the MW Tournament, get a first round bye and get hot enough to win the thing.

New Mexico (22-4, 14-1 MW) at Boise State (17-8, 9-5 MW): Wednesday, 8 p.m. MST, CBS Sports Network — BSU has a good shot at its first win against a team in the top half of the MW standings. The Lobos could be two men down in starting forward Mustapha Amzil (foot) and sixth-man guard C.J. Noland (concussion protocol). They won’t say it, but Sunday’s sweep of Utah State put the Lobos in a far more comfortable place to rest players if needed. UNM is on an eight-game win streak, but this game is far more important for the Broncos right now.

San Diego State (17-6, 10-4 MW) at Utah State (22-4, 12-3 MW): Saturday, 6 p.m. MST, CBS Sports Network — Both teams still have “we’re the best in this league” mindsets. USU upset SDSU in Viejas Arena on Dec. 28 — a game that sort of shifted the midseason narrative of SDSU being the MW favorite to USU being that (at least until UNM took that away with that Feb. 1 blowout in Logan).