Lobos blow out Falcons in record-breaking win

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Eric Olen and the UNM Lobos conquered the front range.

There was no overlooking the struggling Falcons, no Clune Doom, no hiccup, no let up.

Freshman Jake Hall had a game-high 24 points, Tajavis Miller added 16 off the bench and the UNM Lobos thumped Air Force on Saturday afternoon in Clune Arena, 91-49, the largest Mountain West road win in Lobos history and second largest Mountain West win for the program overall.

"That's the expectation," Olen, the first-year Lobo coach said when asked about being able to have his team maintain its focus against a last place Air Force team after a big road win Tuesday at Colorado State.

"If you want to be a good team, you can't pick and choose when you compete and when you focus and when you execute. It's not optional if you're going to be good. And I think our guys are understanding that how you play matters. Your habits matter. How you compete, your preparation, the routine, all that stuff matters. If you want to be a good team and you want to play really well consistently over the course of a conference schedule, then you can't pick and choose. And I thought our guys did a great job (Saturday)."

With the Lobos not playing a road game at Wyoming this season due to the 12-team conference's unbalanced 20-game schedule, the Lobos only trip north to play longtime Front Range rivals Wyoming, Colorado State and Air Force has already passed.

Saturday, UNM (13-3, 4-1 Mountain West) used a 14-0 run just 90 seconds into the game to build a lead that wouldn't be close again.

Air Force falls to 3-13 overall and 0-5 in Mountain West play. And while the freshman-dominated Falcons have now lost those five MW games by an average of 28.4 points per game, Saturday's 42-point difference was the most lopsided.

By the time Jake Hall hit a 3-pointer with 11:23 showing on the first half clock and UNM leading 19-7, Hall already had eight points and two of his game-high five 3-pointers, and Lobo forward Tomislav Buljan had already grabbed 10 of his game-high 14 rebounds. Those 14 boards are the most in a Mountain West game so far this season.

For Hall, who had a team-high 18 points in Tuesday's win at Colorado State, he had a near perfect game Saturday — benefitting greatly from Lobo ball movement that found him for open looks, especially open corner 3-pointers, throughout the afternoon.

"We saw it on film. We knew, as a team, we knew we were gonna get good shots," Hall said. "And me personally, I knew I was gonna get some great looks tonight. Just had to knock them down.

"I don't know what I ended up shooting, but I think I definitely should have hit some more."

Since he brought it up...

Hall did miss a breakaway dunk attempt in the first half that gave the Falcons faithful in the announced Clune Arena crowd of 2,017 one of their few reasons to cheer on Saturday.

"It's gotta be the rims, right?" Hall said with a grin when the dunk came up in a postgame interview, noting that a quick postgame glance at his phone showed him that he already had an unread text from his younger brother that he had no doubt what it was about.

The breakaway attempt aside, the Lobos had very little reason not to smile Saturday.

By game's end, the several hundred Lobo fans behind the team bench — maybe a 50-50 fan split in the arena — were chanting "Lo-bos! Lo-bos!" louder than anything that happened during the game.

Tajavis Miller came off the bench for 16 points and hit four 3-pointers and Uriah Tenette added 10 points and three steals off the bench for a Lobos team that dressed just 10 players and played all five reserves 11 or more minutes.

UNM's bench outscored Air Force's bench 34-16 and the Lobos had 22 points off 21 Falcons turnovers.

AFA got a team-best 13 points from freshman star Kam Sanders and 11 more from forward Caleb Walker.

UNM's 14 made 3-pointers are the most they had in a game this season.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.