Betrayed by the bunny: UNM hit fewer than half of its layups in both games last week

The closer you are to the rim, the easier the shot.

Bunnies, they call them. Cute. Nice. Easy. Nothing bad you can say about a bunny, right?

Lobos coach Richard Pitino gets paid the big bucks in part because his offense generally emphasizes easier shots via getting the ball into the paint, whether passing into a big man or a guard driving to the basket (yes, fast-break layups and dunks count as points in the paint).

This season, the Lobos (7-3 entering Saturday’s home game vs. Division II Western New Mexico) have outscored opponents in the paint in nine of their 10 games. The lone exception was the 85-71 loss at St. John’s.

Last week, the Lobos were twice 20-point favorites in the Pit — in an 83-77 win over San Jose State and in an 89-83 overtime loss to New Mexico State. And, frankly, the Lobos weren’t very good at the rim.

Almost inexplicably, they couldn’t make their bunnies.

“We missed a lot of layups in the second half,” Pitino said after the NMSU loss. “We just got to be better. Myself, coaches, players, everybody’s got to collectively be better.”

Against San Jose State, UNM was 13-of-28 (46.4%) on layups. In the rivalry loss to the Aggies, the Lobos were 14-of-38 (36.8%) on layups.

It was the only two times this season the Lobos shot worse than 50% on layups — the type of shot 6-foot-10 starting center Nelly Junior Joseph and elite-finisher Donovan Dent have been among the best in Mountain West conference at hitting.

But last week?

“We just missed, we missed so many things at the rim in overtime,” Pitino said later in his NMSU postgame press conference, as if still trying to figure it out. “We just could not make a layup.”

The struggle was shared, for sure.

Here is how UNM’s starting five fared in shots at the rim in those two games, according to the website BartTorvick.com:

• Nelly Junior Joseph: 12-23 (5-10 SJSU, 7-13 NMSU)

• Donovan Dent: 7-20 (2-9 SJSU, 5-11 NMSU)

• Mustapha Amzil: 4-11 (4-7 SJSU, 0-4 NMSU)

• Tru Washington: 2-8 (1-3 SJSU, 1-5 NMSU)

• C.J. Noland: 1-5 (did not play vs. SJSU, 1-5 NMSU)

TWO-GAME TOTAL: 26-57 (45.6% at the rim)

For two games last week in the Pit, the Lobo starters missed 31 shots at the rim, which for Pitino hasn’t led to the happiest of weeks between games.

“We just gotta own it,” Pitino said. “You know, it’s on all of us. Just gotta get back to work because, because ... we’re just not playing well enough right now. And our fans, our fans, deserve better than that.”

FAMILIAR FACE: Judah Casaus, a 6-1 backup point guard for the Mustangs, is from Albuquerque, where he was once teammates at Del Norte High School with Lobo walk-on guard Shane Douma-Sanchez, where the duo formed one of the state’s most dynamic backcourts in any classification.

After his junior season at Del Norte, Casaus decided to finish his high school career at ABQ Prep, where he graduated in 2023.

Assuming Casaus gets in Saturday’s game, he will represent the first graduate of ABC Prep, not just the travel team, but the school, to play in a game in the Pit.

D-II RECORDS: UNM is 19-3 all-time against WNMU and 60-8 all-time against the state’s three Division II schools. ENMU was the last D-II team to beat the Lobos in the regular season, and the only one to do so in the Pit, with an 81-76 win over the Dave Bliss-coached Lobos on Dec. 2, 1991.

Western’s last win vs. the Lobos was an 85-75 victory in 1958 in Johnson Gym. New Mexico Highlands has four wins over UNM, but the last came in 1929 in Carlisle Gym, 31-30.

NON-DIs: The Mountain West has seven scheduled games against non-Division I teams this season, with Saturday’s Lobos/Mustangs game being the last.

Non-DI games do not hurt, nor do they help, a DI team’s postseason computer résumé, though clearly are hard to ignore for the humans who comprise the NCAA Selection Committee if things go bad.

The MW is 6-0 so far against non-DI teams and winning by an average of 105.8-64.7. (San Diego State, Boise State and San Jose State’s two non-DI games were against teams competing below the D-II level).