Clune doom? History, stats may not be in the Lobos' favor as UNM travels to Air Force

A day before New Mexico played Utah State in a battle for first place in the Mountain West standings, Lobos coach Richard Pitino tossed out a hypothetical question.

“We’re all such prisoners of the moment. You know, ‘Big game! Big game!’ Well, okay, what’s a bigger game? If we lost to Air Force or we lost to Utah State?” Pitino asked a room of reporters.

At the time, the statement screamed of a coach trying to downplay the hype of the game, maybe take the pressure off his team.

A week later, with blowout victories over Utah State and Colorado State, the Lobos (19-4, 11-1 MW) are now alone in first place in the standings and about to play last place Air Force (3-20, 0-12 MW) on Saturday afternoon inside a Clune Arena averaging about 10,000 fewer fans than the Pit.

And the answer to coach’s question is clear.

While losses in either of the past two games could have ended UNM’s at-large NCAA Tournament hopes, a defeat Saturday against Air Force will end that discussion.

“I think our guys understand right now, this time of year, how important all these games are,” Pitino said earlier this week, prior to the CSU game.

Still, despite UNM being heavy favorites (16½ points), there are two stubborn little things that led cause to worry about Saturday’s game: History and statistics.

First, the history

While Air Force is on a 17-game home losing streak in Mountain West play, that last victory in the Cadet Field House was Feb. 10, 2023 against the Lobos. And while the Lobos may have won 13 consecutive games against Air Force from Jan. 19, 2008, to Feb. 6, 2013, the next 13 Lobo wins have been matched by nine Air Force wins over the past 24 games.

Oh, and just in case any Lobo fans forgot, last season’s NCAA Tournament appearance was only because they won the Mountain West Tournament. A Rytis Petraitis 3-pointer with 7 seconds left in the game in the Pit on Feb. 24 gave the 19-point underdog Falcons a shocking 78-77 win over UNM, a late-season lead balloon to UNM’s postseason résumé.

What the stats say

History shows Air Force has been able to pull off the upset sometimes. But this Lobos team is different, right? Aside from the fact that Petraitis is now playing at Cal, these Lobos have just looked so, so good against teams way better than these Falcons, so what’s the problem?

Well, about that.

According to EvanMiya.com, a basketball analy- tics website, the Lobos are the second-highest rated team (out of 364 in Division I) under the “opponent adjust” metric, which Miya defines as “how well each team performs above or below expectation based on if they are playing an above average opponent on their schedule or a below average opponent.”

Simply put, there are almost no other teams in the country that play up for the good opponents and down for the bad ones quite like these Lobos.

That explains blowouts against the Mountain West’s best, or never trailing in a neutral court win over UCLA and being up 20 late in the win over USC.

But it also explains losing to San Jose State, struggling at Wyoming, and, yes, that overtime loss to New Mexico State that is bogging down UNM’s postseason résumé as a “Quadrant 4” loss, something only three teams in the top 50 of the NET rankings have right now.

The good news is a stat like “opponent adjust” might bode well a team such as UNM makes it to the Big Dance, where one would assume they’d face only good opponents.

The bad news is, if games like Saturday go downhill, there may not be a Big Dance to attend.

For a more concrete example of UNM’s play good vs. good and bad vs. bad habit, focus on what they’ve done in Mountain West play.

UNM is 5-0 against the four other top teams in the standings, beating Utah State, San Diego State, Colorado State (twice) and Boise State. What’s more, the Lobos held a lead of 19 points or more in each of those games. But the games against the five Mountain West teams they’ve played with losing league records tells a different story.

• vs. 5-7 Nevada: UNM needed a buzzer-beating jumper from Nelly Junior Joseph in overtime in the Pit on Jan. 3.
• vs. 5-7 UNLV: UNM won a nail-biting, one-possession game on the road on Jan. 25.
• 5-7 San Jose State: UNM needed to close out the game on 23-8 run to beat the Spartans in the Pit on Dec. 4; and lost to the Spartans on the road Jan. 14.
• vs. 4-8 Wyoming: UNM scored just 18 first-half points and needed a 17-1 run to start the second half to end up getting an eight-point win on the road Jan. 7.
• vs. 1-11 Fresno State: Well, UNM did fine in its two wins vs. the Bulldogs.

NOTES: Anyone planning to attend Saturday’s game must fill out an online application in order to gain access to the U.S. Air Force Academy campus. The questionnaire, which has never been utilized before at the USAFA, asks for such information as citizenship, gender, Social Security number, date of birth and driver’s license number. Information can be found on the Air Force athletics web site.

A win Saturday for UNM would be the program’s third-consecutive 20-win season after going eight years (2014-15 through 2021-22 seasons) without one.