Today?s Mountain West showdown in the Pit may boil down to one simple number.
70.
In their 11 wins this season, the Boise State Broncos have broken through the 70-point plateau each time. In the team?s six losses, including three of their first four MWC games, they?ve not scored 70.
For host UNM (12-5, 4-1 Mountain West), meanwhile, 70 has unexpectedly taken on a rather significant meaning. Through 17 games, the Lobos have not allowed an opponent to score 70 points, one game shy of the 18-game streak to start the season the 1962-63 Lobos enjoyed. That was the best such start for the program since the 1948-49 season.
UNM and Cincinnati are the only two Division I teams (of 351) that have yet to surrender 70 points in a game.
The stingy Lobos defense has, head coach Craig Neal admitted, been somewhat of a surprise.
?At the start of the season, I didn?t think we?d be this good defensively,? Neal said. ?I thought we?d be a lot better offensively. And now, it?s completely reversed. I think we?re OK offensively. I just think we have guys trying to find their way ? what?s a good shot, what?s a bad shot.?
What the Lobos have shown, unlike Boise State (80.0 points per win and 55.5 points per loss), is an ability to find ways to win even when the shots aren?t falling. And for Boise State, the loss of senior guard/forward Anthony Drmic (out for the season after ankle surgery Thursday) has led to several games in which the shots simply didn?t fall.
But that could be changing. While Neal called Drmic the Broncos? best player, he also says senior guard Derrick Marks is ?probably playing as well as anybody in the conference. Offensively, he is a handful.?
Marks is averaging 17.8 points per game (No. 2 in the Mountain West) and has a league-best 3-point shooting percentage of 53.3.
So do the Lobos let Marks get his while trying to stop everyone else on the court in an effort to keep that sub-70 point streak alive?
?We?re not going to let anybody get anything,? Neal said. ?We?re just going to guard them. We?re going to do like we?ve done in years past (scheme-wise).?
Maybe it?s that simple.
After all, UNM has won six of the seven games it has played against Boise State since the Broncos joined the Mountain West.
AUSSIE-ON-AUSSIE CRIME: After UNM senior Hugh Greenwood dropped 20 points on Boise State in the Pit a year ago, Broncos head coach Leon Rice dubbed the performance ?Aussie-on-Aussie crime.?
Boise State has three players from Australia on its roster, but for the rest of the season is now without its star in Drmic, a longtime rival and friend of Greenwood?s since their battles on the courts Down Under. Drmic did not make the trip to Albuquerque.
?We?ve had a rivalry for a number of years now, and it?s going to suck not having him out there,? Greenwood said. ?We?re obviously very competitive. He?s from an environment where they were always winning (in Australia). He played for Victoria, which is the premier basketball state, and I was from a small one ? I was from Tassie (Tasmania), so he would always (win) when we played state. So to come over here and be in different shoes, it?s been nice.?
UNM is 6-1 with Greenwood and Drmic on the court over the previous three seasons, a point the Lobo Aussie is quick to point out.
Greenwood ? who says the pair admittedly used to get quite heated with each other back home ? hopes for nothing but the best for his former roommate at the Australian Institute of Sport. The two hope to play together this summer for Australia in the World University Games.
?Since we?ve come to the States, we?ve probably grown closer,? Greenwood said. ?We talk a lot, and we?re the only two in our age group who have continued on with the (Australian) National Team, so we?ve got a relationship there, too.?
