Lobos can't hit shots, squander solid defensive effort in road loss at Boise State

BOISE, Idaho — New coach. Same results.

Long stretches of bad shot selection, a general inability to get the ball inside to post players and the Lobos' worst shooting performance of the season led Boise State to a 62-53 win, extending the Broncos' win streak over UNM in ExtraMile Arena to eight in a row.

The Lobos (10-3, 1-1 Mountain West) haven't won in Boise since 2017.

"This is a tough place to play," UNM first year coach Eric Olen said after his team's first conference road game. "Great environment, really good basketball team. It was a good opportunity for us, and maybe a little bit of a missed one for us in terms of not playing as well as we would like, specifically offensively."

The Broncos (9-4, 1-1) outrebounded the poor-shooting Lobos 48-38 and were led in scoring by Spencer Ahrens with 12 points, along with three others scoring in double figures.

UNM got a double-double from freshman center Tomislav Buljan — 16 points and 10 rebounds — but his success came primarily on his own ability to score in the post.

A Deyton Albury alley-oop to Buljan with 18:25 left in the first half that put the Lobos up 4-0 was the only basket he made that was assisted in a night that UNM finished with a season-low four assists. Prior to this matchup, UNM hadn't had fewer than four assists in  any game under Eric Olen.

"They like everything one-on-one. They didn't help a lot (on defense, which tends to create passing lanes)," Buljan said. "I think we need to improve looking to pass the ball and move around more. ... I don't think defense was the major issue."

The Lobos opened the game on an 8-0 run before going cold. Fortunately, their defense was elite early, forcing Boise State to miss its first 11 shots of the game. Boise State's first made field goal was a Drew Fielder 3-pointer with 11:21 left in the half.

But the Lobos by that point could only muster an 8-5 lead.

UNM shot 26.7% from the field in the first half — 8-of-18 on 2s, 0-of-12 from 3-point range.

Boise State shot 25.0% in the first half — 5-of-11 on 2s, 2-of-17 from 3-point range.

By games end, the numbers were better, but not by much.

UNM finished shooting 30.8% overall and 12% from 3-point range (3-of-25). Leading scorer Jake Hall was 1-of-10 overall, 0-7 from 3.

"I think when you play really good teams on the road, you don't have as much room for error," Olen said. "I love the way we competed defensively. I thought we did enough on that end, did a lot of the things that we felt like we needed to do to have success. And you know, ultimately, we just didn't get it to go in the basket enough."

The game wasn't without some spurts of offense, though. UNM opened the second half on a quick 11-0 run that led to Leon Rice calling a timeout with 17:32 still showing on the clock and the Lobos leading 30-21. Combined with the last bucket of the first half and another two points after the timeout, UNM's 15-0 run turned a 21-17 deficit with 1:47 left in the first half into a 32-21 lead with 16:57 left in the game.

Then they went cold again. Boise State had runs of 7-0 and 10-0 midway through the half and took an 11-point lead on a Drew Fielder 3-pointer with 4:24 left.

UNM went 5-of-10 at the free throw line in the final 6:30 of the game (10-of-16, 62.5% in the game), again incapable of doing enough offensively to mount a come back.

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