Lobo Howl: Freshmen steal the show in unveiling of new-look UNM basketball teams

Geoff Grammer Geoff Grammer Geoff Grammer Journal Staff Writer

Published October 4, 2025 - 10:28 p.m. Modified October 4, 2025 - 10:52 p.m.

Uriah Tenette casually dribbled toward the three “official” slam dunk contest judges sitting near half court in the Pit on Saturday night.

Stopping about five feet in front of them, the 5-foot-11 freshman point guard — the smallest Lobo on the entirely new-look UNM Lobo men’s basketball roster — flashed a grin and pointed at one of the judges he has more than a little in common with.

Jamal Fenton, the 5-9 former Lobo point guard whose high-bounce, back flip dunk from the 2011 Lobo Howl was highlighted this past week on a social media video previewing Saturday night’s return of the Lobo Howl event, smiled back.

That sent Tenette into action, doing a back flip of his own, spinning and sprinting toward the basket, catching a high-bounced ball thrown from the crowd and dunking it in, setting the tone for a fun night for a few thousand men’s and women’s basketball fans in the Pit.

“I had like five or six dunks that maybe I was thinking about, but I didn’t know which ones I was going to do,” said Tenette, the freshman from Prescott, Arizona.

“Once I saw he (Fenton) was a judge — I knew I could do a back flip and I knew I was the same size as him, so I paid homage to him.”

The dunk — in the first round of Saturday’s contest — set up a worthy highlight reel contest between him and teammates Deyton Albury, a 6-2 transfer from Utah State; Antonio Chol, a 6-9 transfer from Garden City (Kansas) Community College; and Kevin Patton Jr., a 6-8 transfer from USC, who earned plenty of “10”s himself from the generous panel of judges until a tiebreaker between he and Tenette decided things.

“It’s just great to get out here with the fans and have our guys get to engage with everybody and everybody kind of see a little bit of what they can do (on the court),” said first-year Lobo men’s basketball coach Eric Olen. “We’re just super excited for the season. This was a great warm up.”

Foster for 3!

Freshman Kaia Foster, a 6-2 freshman guard from Pasco, Washington, for Mike Bradbury’s UNM Lobo women’s team, calmly, and rather cold-bloodedly, sank her first six 3-pointers and easily beat Lobo men’s sharp-shooting freshman Jake Hall in the championship round of the first-to-seven 3-point contest.

“Me being a freshman, the Pit — it’s just crazy,” Foster said. “The fans, they just made me feel better.”

Any doubt she was going to win?

“Absolutely not,” she said with a smile. “I have all the confidence in the world. I practice in here every day.”

Skills contest

In a first-of-its-kind competition, the Howl’s skill competition featured split teams (one player from the men’s team, one from the women’s on four teams and then one team of two players from the women’s team).

Players worked their way up one end of the court after first getting a 15-foot bounce pass through a large ring, then some cone dribbling and a jump shot before coming back down the other side doing similar drills.

The team of 6-2 Jessi Joaquim, a junior forward from Cochise (Arizona) College for the women’s team, and 6-4 Tajavis Miller, a senior transfer guard from North Dakota State, won the championship round with a time of 57.7 seconds.

They beat 5-9 Destinee Hooks, a junior guard for the women’s team, and 6-6 Chris Howell, a senior transfer from UC San Diego on the men’s team.

This and that

As for that pass from the stands Tenette caught, it came from his dad, Michael Tenette, who was at the game with Uriah’s mom and younger siblings.

How did the former all-state quarterback from Prescott High School rate the pass?

“It was an A-plus. It was from dad,” said Uriah Tenette. ...

• Lobo Tomislav Buljan, the 6-10 freshman from Split, Croatia, who played professionally overseas before being cleared to play for the Lobos, was held out of Saturday’s competitions (he was scheduled to be in the skills competition) nursing a minor thump bang up he suffered this week in practice, but it wasn’t anything considered serious. ...

• Joining Fenton as judges for the dunk contest were former Lobo fan favorite, Antisha Brown of the women’s team and the Journal's Geoff Grammer, the writer of this article.

• Grant Frost, a UNM student who was one of three students picked to try a half court shot for a pair of custom Nike shoes, started the night off right, banking in a half court shot before the first contest started. The other two UNM students who got chances later in the night had multiple airballs and weren’t as successful.