MOUNTAIN WEST CHAMPS: Lobos rally past Aztecs to win tournament title

Jaelen House and Jamal Mashburn Jr. had never been to New Mexico when they agreed to become Lobos in the spring 2022.

Their coach, Richard Pitino, had attended one game as a fan when his father coached in the Pit in 2005.

Together on Saturday evening, the polarizing showman point guard from Phoenix, the cerebral leader from Miami and the vagabond coach from the Northeast — bonded by being compared to their famous basketball fathers — cemented their names in the annals of Albuquerque sports history as they brought an end to the longest NCAA Tournament drought in University of New Mexico basketball history.

Powered by 28 points from House and 21 from Mashburn, the sixth-seeded UNM Lobos completed a historic, and dominant, run through the Mountain West Tournament, beating No. 5 San Diego State 68-61 in front of an announced championship crowd of 11,112 in the Thomas & Mack Center.

“I took a chance when I took this job, and I did it because of our fan base,” Pitino said. “I wanted to be at a place that celebrated basketball, and I wanted to be in a community that really cared about the basketball program.

“With that, a lot comes with it. It really does. Sometimes it can be hard. There were some tough times this year with some tough losses, especially at home, where you had to pick yourself up off the mat, and you just had to keep believing in what we’re doing and believing in the guys in the locker room. Our guys never ever wavered from their confidence. They really didn’t. They came into this tournament truly believing that they could win it.

“So that’s why I picked up my family and took a risk, and it sure feels like it’s paying off right now.”

The Lobos (26-9), who played much of the game without star sophomore Donovan Dent who was sick with the flu, punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014, also earning the league’s automatic bid that season by beating San Diego State in the conference tournament title game.

It was UNM’s fifth Mountain West Tournament title, trailing only SDSU’s seven for most ever.

The Lobos ran roughshod through what most consider the best Mountain West Tournament field in this, the 25th anniversary season of the league — becoming the first team to win after starting in the first-round of the four-day event, running up the largest point differential (plus-56) in tournament history and trailing for a grand total of 7 minutes, 19 seconds over 160 minutes of play.

But Saturday was far from one-sided. In fact, the Lobos trailed for more than six minutes in the second half and it looked to many like the defending league champion and national runner up Aztecs were going to run away with it.

In the first half, UNM opened a 14-point lead but San Diego State closed on a 10-2 run and then used runs of 9-0 and 7-0 early in the second half to take a 46-43 lead with 10:59 left in the game.

Down the stretch, Jaedon Ledee — the Aztec forward who was the Mountain West media selection for Player of the Year — began to assert his dominance in the paint, drawing foul after foul against seemingly helpless Lobo defenders.

An All-America candidate LeDee scored 25 points, drew 10 fouls in the game, was a perfect 11-of-11 from the free throw line — going 10-for-10 over a four-minute stretch in which it seemed the Lobos may have run out of answers.

“Clearly they were going to LeDee every single time,” Pitino said. “We were having some issues with getting stops. He was getting fouled, which he does. He’s great at it. He was knocking down his free-throws.

“We just had to go make winning plays, and we found a way to get a couple more winning plays down the stretch.”

LeDee put SDSU up 59-57 with 5:33 remaining while the Lobos were trying to steal some minutes with deep bench reserve bigs Isaac Mushilla and Sebastian Forsling as both starting forwards JT Toppin and Nelly Junior Joseph were in foul trouble. After House tied the game 59-59 with 4:26 left, the fifth-year Lobo said he never had a doubt what was about to happen.

UNM closed out the game, and the Aztecs, on an 11-2 run — House scoring five points and Toppin scoring five of his 13 points while also grabbing several of his game-high six offensive rebounds (11 rebounds overall for his second double-double of the tournament). The Aztecs hit just one of their final 14 shots, finishing with a shooting percentage of 35.7%.

UNM held its four opponents to a combined 34.4% shooting percentage and scored 72 points off turnovers. Saturday, it was a 14-0 advantage in points off turnovers.

“Our defense and our rebounding really grew this tournament, and we had no chance to win if we didn’t start getting scrappy like we did, Pitino said.”

Now, the Lobos wait to hear their name called at an open-to-the-public Selection Show event in the Pit on Sunday afternoon — something they wanted to make sure to share with the community after a past decade of agony.

“It just feels so good just to bring a community back and bring bring great basketball back to this community that deserves it,” Mashburn told the Journal. “And ... it just feels so good. I’m blessed.”

ALL TOURNAMENT TEAM: House was named Tournament MVP and was joined on the team by teammates Mashburn and Toppin. LeDee and Utah State forward Great Osobor were the other two named to the all-league team.

Photos: UNM vs. San Diego State in Mountain West championship game