Lobo hoops notebook: Buljan's torrid offensive rebound rate bodes well for UNM

Two Mountain West teams will enter the weekend dead even in rebounding margin — grabbing as many as they’ve allowed through the first week and a half of the season.

The San Diego State Aztecs (60-60 through two home games) and the UNM Lobos (108-108 through three home games).

There is little question that a strong rebounding season is in order for the former — hard-nosed, physical play, and rebounding, is in the Aztecs DNA under Brian Dutcher.

But it’s still too early for fans to have a good sense on just how good the Lobos will be on the glass under new head coach Eric Olen and an entirely new roster of players. Saturday’s rivalry game in Las Cruces against a Jason Hooten-coached New Mexico State Aggies team that is known to be physical, will be the biggest test for UNM on the glass so far.

One player the Lobos likely won’t have to worry about is Tomislav Buljan (pronounced BOOL-yahn), the 23-year-old freshman from Split, Croatia, who led the top Croatian pro league in rebounding last season and so far with the Lobos has made his presence around the rim felt each game.

“Tomislav is a big part of what we’re doing on both ends of the floor,” Olen said after Tuesday’s 82-68 win over UC Riverside. “He impacts the game in a lot of ways. (Tuesday) he had some finishes around the rim. He was terrific defensively. And he was a monster on the glass.”

Buljan on Tuesday had his first double-double of the season — 11 points and 11 rebounds, six coming on the offensive glass.

It’s been his aggression on the offensive boards in particular that has been particularly impressive.

Buljan is averaging 5.0 offensive rebounds a game (15 through three of them) which is tied for 13th in the country and his 24.1% offensive rebound rate is tops in the Mountain West (only Grand Canyon’s Nana Owusu-Anane at 20.3 joins Buljan at better than 20%).

Through three games, Buljan’s averages:

Points: 12.0

Rebounds: 10.0

FG: 53.8% (14-26)

Fouls drawn: 9 (3.0 per game)

FT: 72.7% (8-11)

Injury updates

UNM has not given any updates on point guards Uriah Tenette and Deyton Albury, who were both said to be held out of Tuesday’s game with UC Riverside due to “lower body” injuries, though Albury suited up for the game and was available and Tenette, while he didn’t suit up, did go through a morning shoot around before it was decided he wouldn’t play.

For New Mexico State, forward Julius Mims, the 6-foot-9 transfer from Idaho, sustained a concussion in the team’s Nov. 4 game against Division I Adams State and was held out of Tuesday’s game against D-II New Mexico Highlands.

NMSU coach Jason Hooten said this week that Mims has been released from concussion protocol and was cleared to return to contact drills on Thursday.

Season tickets

Season ticket sales come to an end at close of business Friday in the Lobo ticket office and at GoLobos.com/tickets.

UNM has sold 8,672 season tickets for this season — 105% of last season’s base of 8,253.

Mini-plans and single ticket sales will continue throughout the season.

Former Lobo updates

Former Lobo Ibrahima Sacko, who transferred out of UNM this past offseason and initially signed with NMSU before settling in at Division II New Mexico Highlands University, scored four points in 31 minutes against the Aggies in Tuesday night’s game in Las Cruces.

Javonte Johnson, who played three years for UNM before transferring to Colorado State then concluded his college career playing at Cal Baptist last season, scored 33 points and had 11 rebounds on Thursday for Gimle BBK in Bergen, Norway, in a win over Fyllingen in Norway’s BLNO pro league.

Nelly Junior Joseph is averaging 12.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game for SIG Strasbourg in the France-Betclic ELITE league, the highest pro league in France.

Watch party and broadcast info

For Lobo fans unable to make Saturday’s basketball game in Las Cruces, UNM announced on Thursday a watch party at Sandia Casino’s sports bar.

As for other pregame and game coverage, the game can be heard on the radio in Albuquerque on 770 AM/96.3 FM or in Las Cruces on 99.5 FM. It will be streamed on ESPN+ via the Aggie Vision broadcast.

As for pregame, the Journal will stream its usual live pregame show on the Journal’s YouTube page and Geoff Grammer’s X account in a combined show with the Journal’s usual postgame football show. The show is expected to start at 5 p.m. with Grammer in the Pan Am Center in Las Cruces and Journal football writer Sean Reider joining in from the press box at University Stadium in Albuquerque after the UNM/Colorado State football game.