Around the Mountain: UNM's Dent, honored again with a weekly award, is making case for Player of the Year

Donovan Dent did it again on Monday, earning his second Mountain West Player of the Week honor of the season and the third of his career.

And while there is still plenty of season left to play (30 percent of UNM’s league games have been played), the junior point guard is starting to put just a little bit of space between himself and the rest of the field in what will most likely still be a very hotly contested race for Mountain West Player of the Year.

As for this week’s award, here’s what Dent did to earn it in two games in which slowing him down in any way possible was clearly the No. 1 priority of both opponents that the Lobos beat:

• Dent scored 13 of his game-high 22 points in the second half of a road win at Wyoming on Jan. 7 in Laramie, Wyoming, helping erase a 14-point halftime deficit. He added six assists, two steals and a blocked shot to go along with going a perfect 9-for-9 at the free throw line.

• Saturday in a nationally televised and somewhat surprising one-sided win over San Diego State, Dent scored 12 of his game-high 16 points in the second half against an elite Aztecs defense. He also had five assists and three steals.

Oh, and there’s this: He joined UNM’s 1,000-point club for a career and broke into the Top 10 for career assists in program history despite just being midway through his junior season.

As for the season overall, Dent (19.1 points per game, 6.8 assists and 1.6 steals per game) is the only player in the nation (364 Division I teams) averaging better than 19.0 points and 6.5 assists.

He leads all Mountain West players in scoring and assists this season. In Mountain West-only games, his 18.3 points per game is second best (Boise State’s Tyson Degenhart is No. 1 at 18.8) and his 5.7 assists is second (Boise State’s Alvaro Cardenas’ 8.5 is first).

Only one player has ever led the Mountain West in both categories for an entire season and just two have done it in league play:

Led MW in ppg/apg for entire season:

• 2008-09: Brandon Ewing, Wyoming — 18.5 ppg/5.03 apg (33 games)

Led MW in ppg/apg in league play:

• 2008-09: Brandon Ewing, Wyoming — 18.6 ppg/5.06 apg (16 games)

• 2020-21: Grant Sherfield, Nevada — 18.2 ppg/6.65 apg (17 games).

And then there’s one other stat Dent leads the league in that led to some rather sarcastic comments from his coach over the weekend.

Dent leads the Mountain West in league games in minutes played at 36.0.

“Donnie never wants to come out. He thinks he’s like Bill Russell. He thinks he’s player-coach. He wants to walk the sidelines, play 40 minutes,” UNM coach Richard Pitino said. “Anytime I take him out, he always argues with me.”

FRESHMAN OF THE WEEK: Wyoming forward Abou Magassa earned his first Freshman of the Week honor on Monday after scoring a career high in the Jan. 7 loss to New Mexico (10 points, along with five rebounds).

KILL SHOT: Stats guru Evan Miyakawa has a fun stat to follow on his popular analytics site EvanMiya.com.

It’s the “kill shot”, a term he coined for every 10-0 or better scoring run for a team.

Through the weekend’s games, here are the Mountain West standings for “kill shots” this season:

13 — New Mexico

10 — Utah State

10 — Nevada

9 — San Diego State

9 — Colorado State

9 — Wyoming

9 — Fresno State

8 — Boise State

7 — Air Force

6 — San Jose State

5 — UNLV

As for conceded “kill shots”, Air Force and Wyoming lead the league with 12 apiece (UNM has conceded five).

Nationally, Maryland (22) leads in kill shots while Mississippi Valley State is at the other end of the spectrum, leading the nation with 26 kill shots conceded.

POLL POSITION: Utah State moved up to No. 22 in Monday’s new Associated Press Top 25 poll, the only Mountain West team in the rankings this week, but with two others receiving votes.

The Aggies’ high vote of 12 this week comes from Orange County Register reporter Luca Evans. USU did not appear on seven of 62 voter ballots.

San Diego State and New Mexico were both in the “others receiving votes” section.

The Aztecs are 10 spots out of being ranked with four points, all via a No. 22 vote from Shane Mettlen of the Harrisonburg (Virginia) Daily News-Record.

The Lobos were on two voter ballots, each at No. 25 to earn two points in the poll and are sitting 13 spots out of being ranked. UNM’s two votes came from Chris Murray of Nevada Sports Net in Reno and Andrew Quinn of KREM-TV in Spokane, Washington.

THREE FOR ME: Here are three games I’m especially looking forward to this week (listed chronologically):

• No. 22 Utah State (16-1, 6-0) at UNLV 9-7, 3-2), 9 p.m. MT Wednesday, CBS Sports Network: Things are getting late really early for UNLV, which is coming off back-to-back 22-point blowout losses. Even though it’s just mid-January, the Rebels seem desperate for a win this week. Bad news is they host the tied-for-first-place Aggies, whom UNLV coach Kevin Kruger has never beaten (0-4). Then they play at San Diego State on Saturday.

• Boise State (12-5, 4-2) at New Mexico (14-3, 6-0), 9 p.m. MT Friday in the Pit, FS1: Is it baseball season yet? This is the preseason media poll’s No. 1 and No. 2 projected teams. Pitino’s Lobos have gone just 2-4 vs. Boise State in his tenure as Lobos coach with just one win in the Pit (the other in last March’s Mountain West Tournament). Good news for the Lobos: Max Rice isn’t walking through that door this season.

• Colorado State (10-6, 4-1) at Wyoming (9-7, 2-3), 2 p.m. MT Saturday, TheMW.com: How have the last three editions of the “Border War” gone when played in Laramie? The Cowboys are 3-0 — 79-76 in overtime last year, 58-57 in 2023 and 84-78 in overtime in 2022. How badly do you think Wyoming native Sundance Wicks wants this one against a CSU team that was quietly played excellent basketball since the loss to UNM on Dec. 28.