Lobos hoping 'white out' conditions help cool red-hot Santa Clara in the Pit

Jake Hall rode his motorized scooter to the Pit for practice on Thursday.

It was the better option for the California kid who apparently couldn’t figure out how to get the snow off his windshield.

“Man, I was not expecting it. (Just) was not expecting it,” the Lobos’ leading scorer, who is still just a few months removed from leaving his southern California home for the first time, said of Thursday’s moderate snowfall in the Duke City.

“There was a lot on my car. I had to scooter over here. ... I didn’t have a scraper or anything, so I went the scooter route.”

His southern California head coach, Eric Olen is also in his first year in New Mexico after the past two decades in San Diego and growing up in Alabama.

“Oh, it was great,” Olen said of the snow. “I enjoyed it, personally. My kids were excited. I think that’s the most snow in my life (that) I’ve had on my car, you know?”

And about that windshield snow removal?

“Cardboard box that was ready to be recycled,” Olen said with a satisfied grin, as though he had just solved a Rubik’s Cube (something he is able to do, coincidentally). “We’re embracing the snow. We love it!”

For Hall, a former nationally-ranked surfer who snowboards, he has always had to go to the snow. Thursday was the first time for him, and a lot of other California connections on this Lobos team, that the snow came to them.

Now that they’re regulars with this whole snowstorm thing — OK, so it was more like an aggressive dusting, at best — the Lobos hope Saturday’s “White out” promotion (fans are asked to wear white) will help derail the 8-1 Santa Clara (California!) Broncos, who come to the Pit as a 2-point favorite.

“They have really good players. They’re really well-coached. They’re connected; play with a ton of physicality,” said Olen, almost lost in the long list of compliments that were coming to mind as he thought of this version of the Herb Sendek-coached team that, as of Friday, was ranked higher in the NCAA’s NET rankings (37) than any Mountain West team. That 37 ranking makes Santa Clara the only team in the NCAA’s Top 40 (by NET ranking) scheduled to play in any Mountain West arena this season.

“They’re able to sustain their effort in terms of the ball pressure and the way they make things difficult defensively. They’re good on both sides of the ball. They’re a pretty complete basketball team.”

The Lobos (6-2 and 5-0 at home this season) bring in the nation’s sixth-longest home win streak — 16 victories in a row.

“I think obviously, anytime you get to play a really good team, I think as competitors, everybody’s excited about that opportunity,” Olen said. “To get to do it at home, in front of these fans, it just amplifies all of that. So we’re really excited.”

The last white out

The last white out the Lobos played was on Jan. 3 — an 82-81 overtime win over Nevada on a Nelly Junior Joseph buzzer-beating jump shot.

It was the 1,000th men’s basketball game ever played in the Pit, and also the first time UNM had a non-New Mexico State home game crowd over 13,000 last season — an attendance goal for this game.

Do underdogs woof, woof, woof?

The Broncos are betting favorites for Saturday’s game.

That is a rarity in the Pit.

According to the predictive metrics on KenPom.com, the Broncos should win, 77-75.

The last three times the Lobos were an KenPom underdog in the Pit, they won, although all three were as 1-point underdogs:

• Jan. 11: UNM 62, San Diego State 48 (SDSU was favored by 1)
• Dec. 18, 2024: UNM 78, VCU 71 (VCU was favored by 1)
• Jan. 13, 2024: UNM 88, San Diego State 70 (San Diego State was favored by 1)

The last KenPom favorite to win in the Pit was San Diego State in a 73-71 win over the Lobos on Feb. 25, 2023 — a game in which the Aztecs’ Lamont Butler went coast-to-coast in the closing seconds of the game and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer — exactly five weeks prior to his buzzer-beater in the Final Four to beat Florida Atlantic by one.

On the injury front

Both teams had starters miss their previous games due to injury.

For the Lobos, Tomislav Buljan missed Monday’s New Mexico Highlands game due to an ankle injury, but did suit up and went through warmups.

”Tomislav looks good,” Olen said on Friday. “We expect him to play with no restriction.”

Santa Clara, meanwhile, was without leading scorer Christian Hammond and leading rebounder Jake Ensminger for Wednesday’s game against Utah Tech.

Olen said the Lobos are preparing as though both will play.

Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek on Wednesday night in a post-game press conference was non-committal about the return of either.Series historyThe Lobos hold an all-time series record of 5-3 against the Broncos.

The last two (and three of the last five) games have been neutral court games — a 93-76 Lobos win in December 2023 in Henderson, Nevada; a 79-76 Broncos overtime win in Anaheim in November 2011; and a 54-50 Santa Clara win in Alaska in November 1983.

The last meeting...

Donovan Dent’s 22 points led five Lobo double-digit scorers in a 93-76 win over the Broncos in the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada, on Dec. 9, 2023. The Lobos, who led 47-27 at halftime, forced 26 turnovers in the win.

How this one happened...

The Lobos were to play Santa Clara in October in a closed door scrimmage, the second of a home-and-home preseason scrimmage deal that started a year ago when Santa Clara came to Albuquerque.

With the Lobos looking for quality home games, the schools agreed to scrap that and start a home-and-home, in season series that starts Saturday and the Lobos will return a game to Santa Clara next season. It will be the first regular season game the Lobos have ever played at Santa Clara.

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