Grammer: Somewhere along the way, the high-scoring Lobos became a defense-first team

Donovan Dent flashed an “are you kidding me” sort of glance at college basketball icon Bill Raftery.

The 81-year-old CBS Sports analyst and the third-year point guard, who had just scored a game-high 16 points in a one-sided 62-48 UNM win over visiting San Diego State in the Pit, were sitting courtside Saturday afternoon, chopping it up about Lobos head coach Richard Pitino.

“Is he an offensive coach or a defensive coach?” Raftery asked.

“Oh he’s an offensive coach,” Dent said, throwing it out there again to make it clear. “Offensive coach.”

“Really?” Raftery fired back, genuinely surprised at the answer having known Pitino the coach’s whole life (Raftery is friends with Pitino’s late uncle and his Hall of Fame coaching father). “Don’t tell (Rick Pitino) that.”

Sounds right. These Lobos since Richard Pitino have been all offense, right?

Well, maybe not — and maybe even they haven’t realized it yet. But after back-to-back Mountain West defensive gems, including Saturday’s 62-48 defensive beat down of San Diego State which scored by far a season’s-worst 0.727 points per possession on Saturday — read that again if needed, I’ll wait.

... maybe it’s time we start pushing back on our own preconceived notions about the identity of the Lobos.

This Lobo team — the one who entered Saturday’s game comfortably leading the Mountain West and ranked 13th out of 364 Division I teams in the country in scoring — is, dare I say, a defense-first team that also happens to score sometimes.

KenPom.com’s efficiency rankings show the Lobos’ offense ranks 73rd in the country (fourth in the Mountain West) in offensive efficiency and 48th nationally (second in the Mountain West behind only San Diego State) in defensive efficiency.

Stop. This can’t be right.

I mean, even Papa Pitino, the defensive wizard of a coach himself knows what’s up, right? Earlier this very season, the father sang the praises of his son being an offensive coaching whiz kid after St. John’s beat the Lobos 85-71 on Nov. 17 in Madison Square Garden.

“His offensive mind is brilliant,” Rick Pitino said. “He puts you in situations that really hurt you defensively. ... He’s one of the bright young offensive minds in the game today.”

Consider what the Lobos just did in back-to-back league wins — what looked like a horrific game (because of the offense, mind you) at Wyoming on Tuesday was actually a defensive masterclass, especially in the second half.

• Wyoming shot 21.4% in the second half

• Wyoming scored 0.618 points per possession (just 0.757 PPP for the entire game, second worst of the season for the Pokes)

• UNM outscored Wyoming 43-21 in the half.

Then came Saturday against the Aztecs.

Consider some of these defensive bullet points for the Lobos:

• Held SDSU to 0.727 points per possession (previous low this season was 0.985 in a 67-66 home loss to Utah State on Dec. 28)

• SDSU’s 20 points in the first half were the fewest a Pitino-coached team allowed in a half since Division II Western New Mexico scored 20 in the first half on Dec. 6, 2022.

• SDSU had field-goal droughts of 8 minutes, 42 seconds, 6:57 and 4:17.

“This is how New Mexico plays,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said. “They’re extremely physical. They get handsy on the ball. They force you to drive into places they want you to drive, and then they converge on the ball. And so we didn’t make enough plays going to the basket, getting downhill.”

So, coach Pitino. What say you, Mr. Offensive Whiz? Are your Lobos really a defensive-first team right now?

“We’ve been really, really good since post-New Mexico State — VCU, two wins on the road, back here, we have realized that it does not need to be pretty,” Pitino said. “Yeah, we want to run. We had some what we call touchdowns, where if you score on us, we want to try to score in six seconds or less. ... We want to have that threatened there, but yeah, I just thought it was a gritty, tough win. It’s what San Diego State has done for so long, and we certainly did it.”