Lobos top Bulldogs, post largest comeback in team history

FRESNO, California — Jake Hall is too young to know he's too young to be this good.

The Lobo freshman — for the second time in 10 days — drove right while well-defended by an opposing veteran guard in the final minute of a critical Mountain West road game.

This time, despite the best wishes of the defense to force him to the middle, the 6-foot-4 Hall took his defender to the exact spot on the floor he wanted, and with the shot clock expiring, rose up from 15 feet out on the right baseline — the identical spot to his game-winner at Grand Canyon on Feb. 11 — and calmly sank another critical shot in an 80-78 victory over Fresno State, erasing a surprising 22-point deficit and keeping the Lobos' NCAA Tournament at-large hopes alive.

It was the largest comeback in UNM history, surpassing a 1993 victory at Hawaii when the Lobos came back from 20 points down.

"It was a very similar move (to the GCU game-winner)," Hall said on Saturday. "They guarded it a little different. He (senior Jake Heidbreder) was trying to force me middle into the double, but I knew I could get to my spot just like at GCU and just rise over him."

The win pushed the Lobos to 21-6, and at 12-4 in Mountain West play, they are now tied for second place in the conference standings thanks to San Diego State's loss at Colorado State. Both are just one game back of Utah State (13-3) after the Aggies lost Saturday night at Nevada, who the Lobos play in Reno on Tuesday.

Fresno State falls to 12-15 overall and 6-10 in league play.

"He's got a lot of confidence in himself, and we got a lot of confidence in him," UNM head coach Eric Olen said of Hall's heroics. "And you know, he hit another big shot. But I thought Deyton Albury changed the game in the second half."

The Lobos senior point guard scored 15 of his team-best 21 points, grabbed five of his team-high eight rebounds and snagged both of his steals in the second half on Saturday, including scoring 10 of the Lobos last 23 points in the final 10:14 of the game. 

Hall finished the game with 20 points.

Albury's dunk with 9:57 remaining in the game, following a Uriah Tenette steal and fast break outlet pass, gave UNM its first lead of the game, 61-60, after what had been as bad a start to a game as the Lobos have had all season.

Fresno State led 9-0 and later 16-3 before the first five minutes of Saturday's game had even been played.

"It just didn't feel like us. ... We just didn't quite have it," Olen said. "I don't know. I thought we had good days of practice, but we did talk about how we've had a little bit of a break here. We had a bye, and then we had a game where there's pretty big separation in (Tuesday's 38-point win over Air Force) and so just kind of preparing ourselves to get back up to the level, maybe we weren't there emotionally, to really compete, at least for the first 15 minutes."

A Gasper Kocevar 3-pointer with 5:20 left in the opening half pushed the Fresno State lead to 40-18 — a 22-point deficit that represented the most points UNM has been behind by this season (21 was the previous high in a home loss to Utah State on Feb. 4).

But from that point forward, the Lobos looked like the better team.

UNM used two 7-0 runs (14-4 overall) to end the first half down a dozen, 44-32.

"I thought the close to the half to get us kind of within striking distance was important," Olen said.

To open the second half, it was more of the same. After a Deshawn Gory basket pushed Fresno State up 51-37, the Lobos went on 6-0 and 11-1 runs to cut the lead to four — 52-48 — with 15:07 left in the game.

The chipping away continued until the 10-minute mark when Tenette's steal and an outlet pass to Albury gave the Lobos a 61-60 lead with 9:57 remaining.

The rest of the game was largely back and forth.

Albury, despite not dishing out a single assist, was the most important player down the stretch, drawing fouls, grabbing rebounds and controlling tempo.

"I'm so proud of Deyton. He played his ass off today, especially in the second half," Hall said. "He led the comeback for us. We all feed off Deyton's energy."

Heidbreder had a game-high 22 points and Gory added 21 for the Bulldogs.

Both teams shot over 50% and both hit seven 3-pointers.

UNM was 11-of-13 at the free throw line (Albury and an otherwise struggling Tomislav Buljan each drew six fouls in the game) while Fresno State was just 5-of-9.

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