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Future Lobo gets hot from 3-point range for France in loss to Team USA
Timéo Pons, who has signed to play this season for the UNM Lobos, is playing for Team France in the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in Switzerland.
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If Sunday was any bit of a preview for the future of Lobo basketball signee Timéo Pons, fans sitting near the corners of Bob King Court in the Pit this season will be in for a show.
The 6-foot-8 wing scored 12 points for France on Sunday in a 108-77 loss to tournament favorite Team USA in group-stage play of the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup at Vaudoise Arena in Prill, Switzerland.
Meanwhile, former Albuquerque resident and La Cueva Bear Daniel Jacobsen, a 7-foot-4 center who plays for Purdue and left Albuquerque to finish his high school career at Brewster Academy prep school in New Hampshire, scored nine points, pulled down four rebounds and altered plenty of shots on drives to the rim in the second half for Team USA in 12 minutes played.
Pons, who turns 19 later this week, was a perfect 3-for-3 from 3-point range against the powerhouse Americans, hitting all his 3-pointers from the corners and drawing a foul on a fourth attempt from the corner. He then converted all three free-throw attempts for his 12 points. The rest of Team France was just 2-for-14 (14.3%) from 3-point range against the Americans.
France is now 1-1 in Group D play — “the Group of Death” as some have dubbed it with two of the tournament favorites in the U.S. and France to go along with Cameroon and Australia.
Saturday, France easily handled Cameroon and now plays Australia on Tuesday before knowing where it will be seeded in bracket play, which starts Thursday. Pons did not score in the win over Cameroon.
The incoming UNM freshman will travel to the U.S. to join his new team later this summer, sometime after the U19 World Cup is over on July 6.
France’s game on Tuesday against Australia, which needed double overtime to beat Cameroon on Sunday, will be at 9:15 a.m. Mountain Time and can be viewed live online at YouTube.com/fiba.
What’s your number?
Regardless of how many 3s Pons hits for the Lobos, he’s already guaranteed to put up at least one number that nobody has ever seen in the Pit before.
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Twenty-nine.
UNM on Friday revealed player jersey numbers for the season. Pons, as he’s doing at this FIBA World Cup competition for France, will be wearing jersey No. 29 for the Lobos.
He will be the first Lobo men’s basketball player to wear that number.
This will be the third season the NCAA has allowed all numbers — 0 through 99 — to be worn by players.
Pons’ 29 is the only first-time Lobo number for this season. Two other players — No. 7 Sir Marius Jones and No. 8 Chris Howell — will be just the second Lobos to wear those numbers after first-timers Ibrahima Sacko (No. 7) and Filip Borovicanin (No. 8) wore them last season.
