UNM holds on for tough win at Grand Canyon

PHOENIX — The Lopes had the Havocs. The Lobos had Jake Hall.

Powered by a net-scorching first half and a just-enough second half, the UNM Lobos rode the hot hand of their freshman star down the stretch of a 70-64 road win over Grand Canyon University on Wednesday night in Global Credit Union Arena.

"We've got a lot of confidence in Jake," said UNM coach Eric Olen, answering for maybe the 50th time this season a question about his reliance on a true freshman in big moments. 

But this was different, even for Hall. 

In a road conference game, it seemed as though the Lobos may have squandered a 20-point lead after having lost two in a row in the Pit, and in front of a student section getting praise for being one of the best in the entire country. But Olen didn't hesitate to put the ball in the hands of Hall when the Lobos’ season, to this point, needed its biggest moment. 

"He's a really good basketball player and, I mean, he's a guy who's capable of closing games," Olen said. "And he did it tonight."

The win for the Lobos (19-6, 10-4 Mountain West) snapped a two-game skid and also secured a win where three conference foes they've lost to this season — San Diego State, Utah State and Boise State — all lost themselves.

Hall scored eight of the Lobos' final 13 points and finished with a game-high 23 points — his eighth 20-point game of the season, twice as many as the previous UNM freshman record of four held by Kenny Thomas, Charles Smith and Phil Smith.

After leading by as many as 20 in the first half (38-18), thanks to a 60.0% shooting effort and a defense that stifled the Lopes into shooting just 31.3%, the second half was largely a different story.

Grand Canyon, which was 5-of-7 at the free throw line in the first half, had eight attempts in the first six minutes of the the second half, attacking the rim on every possession, instead of settling for the midrange jumpers that dominated in the first half.

The bully ball mindset — forcing tie-ups, drawing fouls and dominating the glass 22-11 in the second half — got the Lopes back in the game and riled up the Havocs, the GCU student section, who made up the loudest part of of the announced crowd of 6,988.

"They were clearly the more physical team in the second half, at least for a big portion of that," Olen said. "And so those are things that we got to understand and try to adjust to. There's still a lot of time left. We can still improve. And I think it's important that we keep that focus, and we don't become prisoners to the results."

GCU's Jaden Henley and Makaih Williams combined to score 19 of GCU's 23 points in a stretch of eight and half minutes in the second half to take a 55-54 lead with 9:29 left.

The GCU offensive onslaught seemed to finally come to an end later when Olen and the Lobos switched from their man defense to a zone, basically turning GCU back into a jump shooting team and away from the attack-the-rim mode they had so much success with most of the half. 

It was back and forth until the final media timeout of the game had the scoreboard showing the Lopes leading, 62-61, with four minutes left. 

Hall drove to the hoop, stopped on a dime while driving through the lane and buried a step back mid-range jumper from about 10 feet away to put the Lobos back up, 63-62 with 2:52 remaining.

Tomislav Buljan grabbed an offensive board and had a put back for 65-62 with 2:05 left and the Lobos never looked back.

A Henley bucket with 1:44 pulled the Lopes within 65-64 before Hall hit another mid-range shot on the baseline with 2 seconds left on the shot clock and 29 seconds left in the game. A free throw later by Hall and two more by Deyton Albury and the game was over. 

UNM shot 47.1% overall, hitting 9-of-16 3-pointers and holding GCU to 38.3% shooting for the game. 

Antonio Chol broke out of his scoring funk to score 12, as did Buljan, who also had 10 rebounds, for the Lobos. 

GCU was led by Williams' 20 points and 16 apiece from Henley and Brian Moore Jr.

HALL RECORD: Hall's second 3-pointer of the game — a transition triple assisted by Luke Haupt with 8:55 left in the first half to push the Lobos lead to 26-13 — was his 76th of the season, breaking the Mountain West's freshman 3-pointers record (Rashad Muhammad of San Jose State in the 2014-15 season held the record at 75 made 3s in 31 games played.)

Wednesday was Hall's 25th game of the season. He finished 4-of-5 from deep and 8-of-14 overall for his 23 points. 

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