Emptying the Notebook: How UNM's defensive flexibility took away CSU's shooting strength

FORT COLLINS, Colorado — Here are some notes, quotes, stats, trends and other odds and ends I emptied out of the old notebook after Tuesday's 80-70 UNM Lobos win over Colorado State in Moby Arena:

Taking away 3s from CSU's two

There was no secret what the "on paper" matchup would be for Tuesday night's game.

By design, the Lobos had allowed a higher opponent 3-point shooting rate than all but two teams in the country entering the game.

The team's priority on protecting the paint and shots at the rim has been largely successful, mind you, as the Lobos weren't just letting teams take whatever 3-point shot they wanted but were instead trying to force those long shots from certain spots or players. 

But a defensive scheme that forces teams to take long shots wasn't ideal against a CSU team averaging 10.9 made 3-pointers per game (tops in the Mountain West) and shooting 41.9% from 3 (fourth best in the entire country).

"Yeah, it's a problem. On paper, they're a bad matchup," Olen told me Monday when I talked to him about it in the Denver Airport.

Instead of just hoping their regular scheme worked, and despite having a short turnaround from Saturday night's game in the Pit vs. Wyoming to a Monday morning flight to Colorado (and a Sunday off for the players between), the Lobos installed in short order a defensive adjustment that took away the Rams' two-headed 3-point shooting monster — guards Josh Pascarelli and Brandon Rechsteiner.

The backcourt duo entered the game having combined to hit 84 3-pointers in the Rams' first 14 games (each had hit 42, for a combined 6.0 made 3s per game). Tuesday, the duo hit a combined 1-of-6 3-pointers — their lowest output of the season.

"We felt like it was going to be a real challenge for us to limit their strength. So we felt like we wanted to stay tighter (to Pascarelli and Rechsteiner and) not help as much; play a little more one-on-one," Olen said after Tuesday's game.

The trade-off for playing tight on the perimeter is being vulnerable to teams slipping backdoor past over-aggressive or over-extended defenders and scoring at the rim.

Remember, this is a CSU team that now has former Air Force head coach and beloved former Lobos assistant Dave Pilipovich on staff — a man who can certainly help teach a team how to use the Princeton offense to create backdoor layup opportunities when a defense is playing too tightly outside.

Those layups based on UNM's defensive adjustment — and the Rams got a few of them, for sure — were a price the Lobos were willing to take.

"If we can give up three back doors and hold them to six three pointers, only one made, we're going to do that every time," Lobos freshman guard Jake Hall said. "Those back doors are not going to kill us at the end of the day. So, we weren't necessarily inviting them, but we knew that is what could happen with the defense we were playing."

Fewest 3s by Pascarelli/Rechsteiner

(avg. 6.0 made 3s/game entering Tuesday)

• 1 (1-7) — L, vs. Virginia Tech (Nov. 26)
• 1 (1-6) — L, vs. New Mexico (Tuesday)
• 3 (3-11) — W, at Grand Canyon (Jan. 3)
• 3 (3-8) — L, vs. Denver (Nov. 21)
• 4 (4-8) — W, vs. Dartmouth (Dec. 9)
• 5 — three times

Pascarelli has attempted four or more 3-pointers in a game 11 times this season. Tuesday was his first 0-fer in one of those games (he was 0-for-4).

Rechsteiner was 1-for-2 on 3s, just his third game this season not hitting multiple 3s.

CSU still hit seven 3-pointers — 7-of-25 (28.0%) in the game. But they weren't the type of 3s that would derail the Lobos or from the players who Olen and Co. feared could get rolling, like they had done all season.

The Rams' strength was effectively taken away by the Lobos essentially doing the exact opposite of their No. 1 priority on defense.

The gamer

Here's the gamer I filed from Moby Arena on Tuesday night:

• Lobos get hot from beyond the arc, beat Rams

Jake climbing

Lobo freshman Jake Hall led the Lobos in scoring on Tuesday with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting, including hitting 3-of-4 from 3-point range.

That gives Hall 41 made 3-pointers this season (41-of-106 — 38.7%). He's now fifth all time on UNM's freshman 3-pointers made list with at least 17 games remaining on UNM's schedule.

While he's played just 15 games, no other player on the Top 10 of the program's list for most 3s by a freshman played fewer than 30 games.

In Tuesday's win, Hall passed Lobo all-time greats Charles Smith and Rob Robbins.

Most 3s by UNM freshman

• 55 — Kendall Williams, 2011 (35 games)
• 54 — John Robinson II, 1999 (34 games)
• 44 — Kevin Henry, 1998 (32 games)
• 42 — Cullen Neal, 2014 (34 games)
• 41* — Jake Hall, 2026 (15 games)
• 40 — Charles Smith, 1994 (31 games)
• 40 — Rob Robbins, 1988 (36 games)

'2' for 3 the Lobos liked to see

UNM's emphasis on keeping CSU's big two from hitting 3s didn't mean the Lobos weren't happy to see their own '2' for 3 get going on Tuesday.

Tajavis Miller, the backup guard who wears No. 2, came in off the bench and buried three first half 3-pointers and finished Tuesday's game with 11 points in 18:45 off the bench.

The former Summit League Sixth Man of the Year at North Dakota State had been seldom used for a long stretch in nonconference play (he was a healthy scratch from five-consecutive games against Division I teams at one point). Therefore, his recent re-emergence, especially Tuesday, was a welcome sign for a Lobos team that played just eight players at CSU.

"It's just me staying ready for the moment, just being prepared for whenever I got to go in and (then) going in and doing what I got to do to help the team win," Miller told the Journal after the game.

Miller was 3-for-3 from beyond the arc in UNM's season-opener against East Texas A&M, but hadn't hit three 3s in a game vs. a DI opponent since.

Well, at least until Tuesday's first half.

How about 3 for 3?

UNM had three players — Jake Hall, Tajavis Miller and Antonio Chol — each hit three 3-pointers.

That's the first time vs. a DI team that's happened this season and just the fourth time since the 2018-19 season for the Lobos:

UNM 80, Colorado State 70 (Tuesday in Fort Collins):

• Jake Hall (3-5 3FG)
• Tajavis Miller (3-6 3FG)
• Antonio Chol (3-8 3FG)
• Team total: 11-25 3FG

UNM 95, Fresno State 67 (1/20/25 in Abq):

• Mustapha Amzil (3-4 3FG)
• Tru Washington (3-5 3FG)
• Jovan Milicevic (3-5 3FG)
• Team total: 13-30 3FG

UNM 88, Colorado State 59 (12/28/22 in Abq):

• Jaelen House (5-6 3FG)
• Jamal Mashburn Jr. (4-8 3FG)
• K.J. Jenkins (3-4 3FG)
• Team total: 15-25 3FG

Nevada 96, UNM 74 (1/25/20 in Reno):

• Keith McGee (3-4 3FG)
• Vante Hendrix (3-7 3FG)
• Zane Martin (3-7 3FG)
• Team total: 10-24 3FG

Points off turnovers

In UNM's first two games of the season, the Lobos scored a combined 54 points off turnovers — 22 against East Texas A&M in the Nov. 5 opener and 32 against UT Arlington on Nov. 8.

Tuesday's win over CSU was the first time they've hit 20 such points since (21 off 14 CSU turnovers).

UNM scoring 20+ points off turnovers

• 32 — vs. UT Arlington (Nov. 8)
• 22 — vs. East Texas A&M (Nov. 5)
• 21 — at Colorado State (Tuesday)

Colorado State, meanwhile, hasn't exactly had a lot of big turnover games or games where opponents scored a lot of points off their turnovers.

CSU's most turnovers

• 15 — at South Florida (Nov. 28)
• 15 — at Utah State (Dec. 20)
• 14 — vs. New Mexico (Tuesday)

Most points off turnovers vs. CSU

• 27 — at Utah State (Dec. 20)
• 21 — vs. New Mexico (Tuesday)
• 19 — at South Florida (Nov. 28)

House call

We haven't checked in on our old friend Jaelen House in awhile. The former Lobo had a career high 29 points in Tuesday's G-League win for his San Diego Clippers.

No Rams runs

With 17:49 left in the first half, CSU's Carey Booth hit a 3-point play.

With 17:26 left in the first half, CSU's Josh Pascarelli hit a layup for a 5-0 Rams scoring run.

It was the Rams' largest scoring run of the game.

That's it. One 5-0 run. There were a couple of instances of 4-0 runs, but for the most part, the UNM Lobos prevented CSU from stringing together any scoring run of six unanswered points or more.

How uncommon is that? Here are the number of 6-0 (or better) scoring runs per game for Colorado State this season:

• 0 — vs. UNM (Tuesday)
• 0 — vs. Nevada (Dec. 30)
• 1 — at Utah State (Dec. 20)
• 1 — vs. Denver (Nov. 21)
• 3 — at Grand Canyon (Jan. 3)
• 3 — vs. Colorado (Dec. 6)
• 3 — vs. Wichitah State (Nov. 27)
• 4 — vs. Dartmouth (Dec. 9)
• 4 — vs. South Florida (Nov. 28)
• 4 — vs. Virginia Tech (Nov. 26)
• 4 — at Loyola Chicago (Nov. 16)
• 4 — vs. Cal Poly (Nov. 12)
• 5 — vs. Nebraska Omaha (Nov. 9)
• 6 — vs. Incarnate Word (Nov. 3)

Very impressive for UNM.

For CSU, not just troubling based on what happened Tuesday, but four of those top five on the list have been their past four games.

On the other side of the ledger from Tuesday, UNM didn't exactly have a ton of long scoring runs, either, but the Lobos at least had three 6-0 or better runs.

Rockin' and rollin'

It was another big JT Rock night off the bench for the Lobos as the 7-footer chipped in nine points and six rebounds in 20:13 on the floor and was a part of the five-man combination that was UNM's most effective on the court Tuesday (you can see more about that below in my "Line 'em up" section.

And here's another...

Steve Kirkland stat of the night!

Per Steve Kirkland, UNM's men's basketball sports information director, Tuesday's game was less than one minute away from a very unique trifecta.

Final score in Moby 2024: 76-68 (CSU)

Final score in Moby 2025: 76-68 (UNM)

Score with under 1:00 left in Moby 2026: 76-68 (UNM)

Manageable win

The game the world wanted to know about came Monday night.

UNM's managers and staff beat CSU's managers and staff in their Managers Games showdown — a nailbiter of a game, 89-88.

And from what I was told Tuesday, it was a win clearly spearheaded by the superb coaching of Tahlia Garza, UNM's director of basketball operations, and Charisse Williams, the team's strength and conditioning coach.

I even asked Jake Hall about the far more important managers game from Monday night after Jake and the Lobos beat CSU on Tuesday.

Chol-O time

Antonio Chol's offensive game Tuesday was again pretty solid.

CHOL'S LINE:

• Points: 11
• Shooting: 4-9
• 3-point shooting: 3-8
• Rebounds: 5
• Assists: 2
• Turnovers: 0
• +/-: +12 for UNM while he was on court
• Minutes: 32:20

Attendance

The announced attendance for Tuesday's UNM at Colorado State game in Moby Arena: 3,640

Here's what the announced attendance has been at each of UNM's true road games this season:

• 9,980 — Dec. 30 at Boise State
• 8,106 — Nov. 15 at New Mexico State
• 7,637 — Dec. 10 at VCU
• 3,640 — Tuesday at Colorado State

Series notes and its future

UNM leads the all-time series with the Rams 83-53. In Moby Arena, it's a 28-27 CSU advantage. The Lobos' 27 wins are more than any other Rams opponent has in the arena, which opened in the 1965-66 season — one year before the Pit opened.

Tuesday may have been the last time the longtime rivals play each other in the Arena, at least for the foreseeable future as CSU is moving to the Pac-12 next season. Both coaches, however, seem open to continuing the series in a nonconference, home-and-home capacity.

“Abso­lutely. I want to do that,” CSU coach Ali Farokh­manesh told me in October at Mountain West media days in Las Vegas. “We’re gonna need 16 non­con­fer­ence games, too. So, I hope Eric (Olen) wants to.

“It stinks though. To be hon­est, Eric was a friend before he got to New Mex­ico, so I don’t really want to play him. Those are your people and you want to cheer for him, and I’d rather not cheer against him for one game. But yeah, why would we not want to go to the Pit and play? I have to say that now, until I’m actu­ally in that game. But why wouldn’t you want to play at the Pit? Why wouldn’t you want to have New Mex­ico (come to Moby Arena) for our fans? That would mean something to them, too.”

Plus/minus

Here are the plus/minus numbers for Tuesday's game with minutes in parenthesis:

NEW MEXICO

• +13 Uriah Tenette (28:39)
• +12 Antonio Chol (32:20)
• +11 JT Rock (20:13)
• +9 Jake Hall (28:47)
• +7 Luke Haupt (28:55)
• +1 Tajavis Miller (18:45)
• -1 Tomislav Buljan (19:47)
• -2 Deyton Albury (22:35)

COLORADO STATE

• +1 Jojo McIver (10:47)
• 0 Carey Booth (18:37)
• 0 Augustinas Kiudulas (26:22)
• -3 Jase Butler (29:39)
• -4 Josh Pascarelli (26:39)
• -9 Jevin Muniz (33:59)
• -10 Nikola Djapa (13:38)
• -11 Brandon Rechsteiner (29:13)
• -14 Jon Mekonnen (11:06)

Line 'em up

The UNM Lobos played eight players and used 11 unique lineup combinations on Tuesday. The Rams played nine players and used 16 unique lineup combinations.

Here's a look at some of the Lobos lineup combinations, starting with the starters.

STARTING LINEUP

• WHO: Deyton Albury, Jake Hall, Luke Haupt, Antonio Chol, Tomislav Buljan
• POINT DIFFERENTIAL: -8 (11-19)
• TIME ON COURT: 6:15
• NOTE: This is the first time this starting lineup — the version with Luke Haupt in there in place of the injured Chris Howell — has been bad, let alone the worst lineup combination of the game. This group let CSU score a little too much, but that's not entirely unexpected for stretches against a team as offensively dangerous as the Rams, but still a little bit of a come back to reality moment for this grouping that had been playing so well the past couple games (yes, even the Boise State game this starting five was actually very good).

BEST LINEUP

• WHO: Uriah Tenette, Jake Hall, Luke Haupt, Antonio Chol, JT Rock
• POINT DIFFERENTIAL: +10 (18-8)
• TIME ON COURT: 6:53
• NOTE: Good minutes from a lineup involving Uriah Tenette and good minutes from a lineup involving JT Rock isn't entirely new. Both have been part of these "BEST" lineups before this season. But together I don't recall how often I've seen it. They played well off one another at times on Tuesday and Rock's run with Buljan, again having some bouts of foul trouble, was very beneficial for the Lobos.

WORST LINEUP

See starters listed above. That was the worst statistical lineup of the game for UNM.

AND THEM?

NOTE: Though Colorado State had 16 lineup combinations, not one of them was better than +5 or worst than -5. They were all pretty consistently just slightly worse than UNM, which over 40 minutes equates to a 10 point loss. But they were never grossly overmatched, nor clearly better than any set of Lobos on the floor at a given time.

VIDEO: Eric Olen, Jake Hall and Tajavis Miller

Here's my postgame video with UNM coach Eric Olen, Jake Hall and Tajavis Miller:

Pregame from Moby, PLUS ROYCE OLNEY!

Here's a look back at the pregame show Tuesday night from Moby Arena, for those interested in watching/hearing how wrong I probably was about everything that was about to happen in the game.

BONUS: I got a surprise visit from Lobo Legend Royce Olney, who joined me on the pregame show from the arena. Take a look:

Meanwhile, in Laramie

How would Wyoming and coach Sundance Wicks' 'Dirty Dozen' roster (even though they have a couple injuries) bounce back from a disappointing loss Saturday in the Pit against New Mexico?

They wiped the floor with the UNLV Runnin' Rebels, 98-66.

Meanwhile, in Reno

Talk about a potential let-down type of game? After Saturday night's late, triple overtime win over Boise State, playing on the road at undefeated (in league play) Nevada on Tuesday wasn't easy for San Diego State.

And yet, here we are. The "what's wrong with San Diego State" Aztecs are now the 4-0 San Diego State Aztecs after a gritty 73-68 road win at Nevada on Tuesday.

Around the Mountain

There were five games around the Mountain West on Tuesday with one more completing the midweek slate on Wednesday. Here's a look at recent scores and upcoming games around the league:

Saturday (Jan. 3)

• Utah State 96, San Jose State 78
• UNLV 67, Air Force 39
• Nevada 66, Fresno State 65
• Colorado State 70, Grand Canyon 60
• New Mexico 78, Wyoming 58
• San Diego State 110, Boise State 107 (3OT)

TUESDAY

• Utah State 99, Air Force 62
• New Mexico 80, Colorado State 70
• Wyoming 98, UNLV 66
• Fresno State 70, San Jose State 55
• San Diego State 73, Nevada 68

WEDNESDAY

• Grand Canyon at Boise State, 9 p.m. MT (FS1)

FRIDAY

• UNLV at Colorado State, 8 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network)

SATURDAY

• New Mexico at Air Force, 1 p.m. MT (TheMW)
• San Jose State at Grand Canyon, 7 p.m. MT (TheMW)
• Utah State at Boise State, 7 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network)
• Wyoming at Nevada, 8 p.m. MT (TheMW)
• Fresno State at San Diego, 9 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network)

Mountain West standings

Here are the conference standings through Tuesday's games:

(listed alphabetically where records are same)

• 4-0 San Diego State
• 4-0 Utah State
• 3-1 Nevada
• 3-1 New Mexico
• 2-1 UNLV
• 2-2 Wyoming
• 1-1 Grand Canyon
• 1-2 Boise State
• 1-3 Colorado State
• 1-3 Fresno State
• 0-4 Air Force
• 0-4 San Jose State

Stats and stats

Here is the postgame stat sheet I posted after Tuesday's game: New Mexico 80, Colorado State 70

And if you prefer the digital version, here you go: New Mexico 80, Colorado State 70

Up next

For New Mexico: The Lobos play at Air Force on Saturday at 1 p.m. The game will be streamed on TheMW.com.

For Colorado State: The Rams host UNLV at 8 p.m. on Friday in Moby Arena in a game that will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

Grammer's Guesses

I'm back, baby!!!!!

That's right, I beat the coin flips of my teenage daughter who still can't name four teams in the Mountain West conference, and I'm bragging!

The Guesses go 3-2 on Tuesday and her coin flip picks went 2-3. That mean's we're tied again at 12-10.

Season standings:

• My daughter's coin flips: 12-10
• Grammer's Guesses: 12-10

Until next time

Until next time, Moby Arena, on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado ...

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.