Lobos have had success in Las Vegas, just not against the Rebels

It isn’t the city.

The Lobos have won nine consecutive games in Sin City (counting nearby Henderson) in the past two seasons in neutral court games.

And it isn’t the building.

The Lobos have had plenty of success inside the Thomas & Mack Center, the building UNM fans affectionately refer to as Pit West.

Last March, UNM became the first team to win four games in four days to win the Mountain West Tournament championship, the team’s fourth tournament title in that arena in 13 seasons.

But, despite all that, UNLV has had the Lobos’ number in the Thomas & Mack, beating UNM the past six times they played there. The last Lobo win over UNLV in the arena was in 2018 in Paul Weir’s first season as coach.

But don’t tell Richard Pitino, whose first-place Lobos (16-4, 8-1 Mountain West) take on UNLV Saturday in the Thomas & Mack in a network television broadcast (FOX, 1 p.m. MST) that there’s some sort of curse or mental block his team can’t seem to get over with the Rebels.

“The reason why we haven’t won there was the team that we played was really good at the time,” Pitino said. “It’s got nothing to do with the venue, the environment, not to say it’s not good. Kevin (Krueger, UNLV’s coach has) done a great job, especially last year. They were on a little bit of a run there, and they built some momentum. But no, there’s nothing to that one way or the other.”

Not only have the Lobos lost six straight to the Rebels in the Thomas & Mack, but UNLV is winning those game by an average of 17.7 points, while scoring an average of 78.5 points.

The Lobos, winners of nine of their past 10 games due in no small part to players embracing the realization that it’s their defense that sets up their fast break offense, know the only way to break this UNLV road losing streak is with defense.

“Defense travels,” Lobos forward Mustapha Amzil said. “If we play hard and play defense, that’s something that’s easier to do on the road than just making shots, because there’s days you don’t make shots, but every day you can control your effort and how you play defense.”

The Lobos have in recent Mountain West games made a habit of turning steals, blocked shots or rebounds into transition baskets, with the goal being to score in the first six seconds of a possession. The result has included the following crushing runs:

• 21-0 in the first half at Colorado State
• 17-1 to start the second half at Wyoming
• 23-2 to close the first half vs. Boise State
• 25-4 to start the game against Fresno State

Pitino knows it’s hard to count on those sorts of spurts every game, especially on the road, but also knows that what is at the core of those runs — defense — can be replicated.

“You try to get guys to just ignore the scoreboard, as hard as that can be, and just play the right way for 40 minutes,” Pitino said.

“Ideally, we’d love to start out 14-nothing. I don’t think that’s probably going to happen, but just be ready to go. I mean, defense travels, rebounding travels, don’t turn the ball over, something we did a lot last game,” he said. UNM had 13 turnovers in Monday’s 95-67 win over Fresno State, but a first-half stretch of five turnovers in five straight possessions is clearly still stuck in Pitino’s craw.

KILL SHOTS: Statistician Evan Miyakawa tracks all 10-0 scoring runs in Division I games and calls them “kill shots.”

On his site, EvanMiya.com, Miyakawa shows the Lobos have a Mountain West-best 17 kill shots this season in Division I games (second most is Nevada and Boise State at 12) and at 0.89 kill shots per game, the Lobos rank 22nd in the country.

Diving in a step farther, Lobo basketball Sports Information Director Steve Kirkland notes that in Mountain West games, UNM has had nine of those 10-0 “kill shot” runs, nearly double second-place Boise State (five). UNM has already matched last season’s nine “kill shots” over the 18-game MW schedule.

THAT’S SO UNLV: The Rebels (11-8, 5-3 MW) have had a very typical UNLV season — showing they have the talent and defense to knock off very good teams, and the ability to have some head-scratching losses, too.

Here is the up-and-down nature of the Rebels’ Mountain West season so far:

• Start league play 3-0;
• Then lose back-to-back league games by 22 points apiece;
• Then beat a nationally ranked Utah State team, giving the Aggies their first league loss of the season, and follow that up with a fairly comfortable road win over San Diego State in Viejas Arena;
• Then follow that up with Wednesday’s home loss to Wyoming as a 9-point favorite.