Filip Borovicanin may not love defense, but he loves how much it's helping the Lobos win games

Filip Borovicanin has the youthful honesty of a child.

Ask him a question, he just answers.

There’s not much filter in the light-hearted Serbian guard (he did accidentally drop an “F” bomb on a live radio interview earlier this season when describing his thoughts on his team’s buzzer-beating overtime win against Nevada).

Earlier this season when asked if some marks on his face were from physical play, he said “Maybe that’s acne?”

Asked Tuesday about the Super Bowl, he admitted he’s not much of a football fan — he noted his sports are basketball, soccer and tennis because “Serbia has the greatest tennis player of all time.” He also said, “I just looked up and it was 37-0, and I said, ‘Oh, damn.’”

Tuesday, as he was talking about Wednesday’s game in the Pit against the Wyoming Cowboys, a team he dropped a career-high 16 points and 11 rebounds on for his first career double-double when the teams played in Laramie on Jan. 7, he showed more of that blunt honesty.

Asked about the defensive tear the team has been on, and that he’s been a major part of with his rebounding and his ability to slow all-conference candidates like Miles Byrd (San Diego State) and Nique Clifford (Colorado State) on the wing, he didn’t get carried away.

“As a kid, I hated playing defense,” Borovicanin said, acknowledging defense is really just a necessary evil in the game. “Later, growing up, you realize you gotta do that at some point to be a good player. And I’m a big guy who can guard a lot of positions, so I realized I need to do that too, you know?”

Whether he likes it or not, the 6-foot-9 wing has been very good defensively for the Lobos of late and is a key part of the equation for the team’s success — winners of six in a row and 13 of their past 16 games.

“Buy in to it,” Lobo coach Richard Pitino said of why his team has been so good on defense of late, as the Lobos took over the No. 1 spot in defensive efficiency in Mountain West play on Saturday — a stat they’ve not led the league in since the 2012-13 season.

“I think there’s some momentum going on right now. I think everybody sees it, and it’s just a will to win. I just think this team right now has got a great burning desire to win, and they’ll do whatever it takes.”

So, who is the Lobos best defender right now? Well, that’s one question Borovicanin didn’t actually have a quick answer to.

“I can’t really say one,” he said. “I think we’re all great defensive players. Tru (Washington) is obviously amazing at steals, being in the gaps, and then just jumping out to that passing lane, which is, like, incredible. I’ve never seen someone like that.

“And you know when a guy blows by you, you know Nelly (Junior Joseph) is waiting down there (near the rim) to help you out. It’s just so many guys on the team who can do a lot of different things. So yeah, I can’t say one guy.”

ONE MORE FROM FILIP: Asked specifically about the Lobos’ ability of late to have dominant, extended scoring runs that seem to change the complexion of the game, often in the second half — 20-3 at Air Force, 38-15 vs. Colorado State, 43-15 at Utah State, 23-2 vs. Boise State, even 17-1 to start the second half at Wyoming — he said he thinks it’s about the style the Lobos are playing.

“I just think that our pace and tempo that we play, it exhausts teams and the majority of them just give up at the end the game, the last 10 minutes of the game,” Borovicanin said. “... I think a lot of teams can’t keep up that tempo with us.”

MORE NELLY LOVE: A day after being named Mountain West Player of the Week for the fourth time this season, Junior Joseph on Tuesday was one of five players named an Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week, as selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

He is the second Lobo to earn an Oscar Robertson national award this season, joining Donovan Dent who was one of the five weekly honorees after his 40-point game against VCU on Dec. 18.

TEDDY BEAR TOSS: Wednesday’s game will be the annual Teddy Bear toss game in which fans are asked to bring in any new stuffed animal and fire away at halftime, tossing those things toward the court (warning to those sitting near the court, not everyone in the Pit sitting behind you has an arm strong enough to throw a teddy bear all the way to the court, so hold onto those beverages).

After all the stuffed animals are collected by the BeKind UNM initiative through UNM’s Student Affairs, they will be donated to a child in need.

Fans can also register for a prize basket at the main Northeast entrance by showing your stuffed animal to be entered for a drawing.