Lobos beat Lopes on last-second alley-oop

One perfect second made all the difference for the UNM women's basketball team Wednesday night.

With the Lobos and host Grand Canyon tied at 68 and 1.3 seconds remaining in regulation, UNM put together a bit of perfection.

Alyssa Hargrove grabbed an alley-oop inbounds pass from Nayli Padilla and banked it in with 0.3 seconds left to give the Lobos a thrilling and much-needed 70-68 victory at Global Credit Union Arena. The win kept UNM in fifth place in the Mountain West standings and pushed the Lobos two games ahead of sixth-place GCU with four games remaining.

Joana Magalhães collected 17 points and five assists to pace UNM, which also got big nights from Cacia Antonio (14 points, 8 rebounds) and Emma Najjuma (career-best 12 points and 12 rebounds).

More significant numbers were team-oriented stats, as the Lobos outrebounded the Lopes 39-27 and clobbered them 22-1 in bench points. The Lobos also revived an offense that had been struggling in recent games and avenged an earlier 75-62 loss to Grand Canyon at the Pit.

"We handled adversity well, played as a team and were really, really competitive tonight," UNM coach Mike Bradbury said. "Win or lose, I really liked the way our players approached this game and felt good about the fight they showed. Obviously, I'm really glad we won, too."

UNM (18-9, 10-6) led nearly all the way but could never get clear of the Lopes (9-17, 8-8), who got 22 points from Julianna LaMendola and hit nine 3-pointers to the Lobos' five. Casey Valenti-Paea, who scored 18 points, swished two free throws to tie the score at 68 with 1.3 seconds left.

Bradbury and his staff called timeout to advance the ball and set up what would be the decisive play. As Hargrove came off a free throw-line screen by Najjuma, Padilla lobbed a pass from the sideline over two GCU defenders to the far side of the paint. Hargrove jumped to catch the ball and banked it in, setting off a celebration on UNM's bench.

"Emma set a great screen, Nayli threw a great pass and Alyssa did a great job finishing," Bradbury said. "It took all of that for the play to work and our players executed it perfectly."

After a review, officials put three-tenths of a second back on the clock, but GCU did not have any timeouts left and could not get a shot off from beyond half court before the buzzer.

New Mexico tossed a few curveballs at the Lopes as it tried to avoid a repeat of its Jan. 17 home loss to Grand Canyon. UNM broke out a half-court zone midway through the second quarter and continued to employ it for stretches in the second half.

"They beat us up on the boards (at the Pit) and we really wanted to keep them out of the paint," Bradbury said. "We got a lot of mileage out of that zone."

UNM outscored GCU 38-16 in the paint.

The Lobos led 21-13 after one quarter and 36-28 at halftime, thanks to steady scoring from Antonio and Magalhães. Grand Canyon bounced back with a 14-5 run to start the third quarter, grabbing a brief lead at 42-41. But UNM answered with a 14-6 surge of its own and took a 55-48 lead to the fourth quarter.

Valenti-Paea and LaMendola hit consecutive 3-pointers to open the fourth and the game stayed tight down the stretch. GCU went 8-for-8 from the foul line in the final 1:55, while UNM went 5-for-6, setting up the dramatic finish.

Hargrove scored eight points and pulled five rebounds, and Padilla had seven points for the Lobos, who return home to face Air Force on Saturday at 1 p.m.