Freshman lead charge, Lobos in first place tie

SAN JOSE, California — If this was supposed to be a trap game, someone forgot to tell the baby Bos.

For the fourth consecutive game, UNM's three freshmen all scored in double figures led by 27 from Jake Hall and the Lobos held off the San Jose State Spartans, 90-80, in front of an announced season-high Provident Credit Union Event Center crowd of 4,189 on Saturday night.

"We'll always take a win. We're good with the result," said UNM coach Eric Olen. "I didn't feel like we weren't ready to go, or we didn't play well. I thought we were really good offensively. We were sharp. We took care of the ball. We had great shot selection."

If splitting hairs over how the Lobos came to a 10-point road win in conference play — at a place where last season's Mountain West champion Lobos lost — is where the Lobos are at heading into February, things could be a lot worse.

In fact, the Lobos (18-4 overall) improve to 9-2 in Mountain West play and are in a three-way tie for first place in the conference standings with Utah State and San Diego State.

The Aggies, who defeated San Diego State earlier in the day in Logan, Utah, to help create the logjam atop the standings, visit the Pit on Wednesday to play the Lobos for the first of two games this season between them.

"Obviously, it's a really good team coming in," Olen said. "It's a great opportunity for us. And we just got to do the things that we can do to try to play good basketball."

As for Saturday, the Lobos offensively could do little wrong.

Hall hit 7-of-9 3-pointers for his game-high total — the second time this season he's hit seven 3s in a game, which is a record for UNM freshmen (twice now by Hall and Kevin Henry also did it once in 1997).

Fellow Lobos freshman Uriah Tenette scored all 14 of his points in the second half, including knocking down 6-of-7 free throws.

"Those two are really good. Hall is really good. Tenette is really, really good," said San Jose State coach Tim Miles. "... When I look at their guard play, their ability to guard, they're very good defensively, they've got an anchor in (Tomislav) Buljan, they've got enough perimeter shooting with (Antonio) Chol and those other guys, and then those two crafty guards — and then (Deyton (Albury) is super athletic and downhill puts a lot of pressure on you. 

"That's a good team, the most complete team. I think there maybe a little bit better offensive teams in the league and a little bit better defensive teams in the league, but to me, when you put it all together, I think New Mexico is probably the most complete team."

Buljan — the non baby of the freshman three at 23-years-old, but freshman nonetheless — finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, his 11th double-double of the season and seventh in Mountain West play.

Deyton Albury's 14 points gave UNM four players in double figures and Luke Haupt had seven points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals.

UNM forced a season low five turnovers — something that was a bit of a concern after the game.

"Our disruption definitely — I don't think it was there tonight," Hall said.

His coach was a little slower to judge. While he wasn't happy with the defense overall, he said he wasn't entirely sure the turnovers was a matter of the Lobos lacking on their usual disruption or if it was more about SJSU playing what Olen credited as a very good offensive game.

"Defensively, I'd have to look at the film to really know for sure, but it felt watching it like a significant portion of it was just good play from them," Olen said. "I just thought their offense played better than our defense."

UNM hit 11-of-23 3-pointers and shot 54% overall.

San Jose State, which got a team-high 24 from Colby Garland, who had 27 in the first game in the Pit last month) shot 47% and also had 11 made 3s, but did so on 32 attempts.

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