Early on, it appeared that the season opener was going to go quite well for the ASU men's basketball team.
The Sun Devils appeared poised and ready to compete in one of the toughest road venues in the nation, but then one stretch changed the tone for the rest of the game.
New Mexico (2-0) took control midway through the first half with a 20-0 run that put ASU (0-1) in a hole it couldn’t climb out of, falling to the Lobos 76-62 at The Pit on Tuesday night in Albuquerque.
“Just really disappointed in our effort when the game was on the line,” ASU associate head coach Dedrique Taylor said in a postgame radio interview. “When the game was on the line we had a couple opportunities, especially defensively. [New Mexico] wanted it a little more.”
Sophomore guard Trent Lockett scored 10 of ASU’s first 13 points as the Sun Devils jumped out to a 13-7 lead with 13:56 remaining in the first half.
That’s when things went south in a hurry.
ASU went over seven minutes without scoring and UNM took advantage of the scoring drought by rattling off 20 unanswered points to take control and grab a 27-13 lead.
“The momentum just switched,” Taylor said. “They made a couple of hustle plays and they got the momentum and kept rolling with us. We couldn’t do anything to stop it with our defense and, more importantly, we couldn’t stop it with our offense.”
The Lobos held a 13-point lead with just over three minutes left until halftime, but the Sun Devils cut it to 35-29 at the break, closing the half on a 9-2 run.
That left the game within striking distance in the second half, but whenever ASU pulled close to the Lobos, UNM had an answer.
After falling behind 45-34 with 16:34 left, ASU eventually cut it to six on a three-pointer by sophomore Carrick Felix.
When the back-to-back Mountain West Conference champion Lobos brought it back up to a double digit lead, the Sun Devils had another answer and cut the lead to 50-45 with 11:45 to play.
That would be the closest that ASU would get, as UNM seized the momentum thanks to the hot hand of freshman guard Kendall Williams, who finished with 15 points.
Williams drilled two crucial three-pointers that stretched the Lobos’ lead to 62-49 with 6:46 to play. UNM was on fire from beyond the arc in the second half and used the long ball to pull away from ASU and eventually run their lead out to as much as 20 late in the game.
Lockett finished with a career-high 22 points and also grabbed eight rebounds. Senior guard Jamelle McMillan added eight points and eight rebounds, while freshman forward Kyle Cain finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
“I thought Kyle competed his behind off, he sparked us with his hustle play,” Taylor said. “He is going to be a kid that is going to give us hustle minutes and provide energy for our ballclub.”
Senior guard Ty Abbott also added eight points, but was just 2-of-9 from the field. McMillan, Abbott and fellow senior Rihards Kuksiks were just a combined 6-for-22 from the field.
Lockett was the only Sun Devil that was in an offensive rhythm all night and without his performance, ASU would have been out of it much earlier.
“He really came out here and attacked the game,” Taylor said of Lockett. “He rebounded and his athleticism showed up, he was exceptional tonight.”
The Sun Devils struggled mightily from three-point land, making just five of 21 attempts.
Taylor wasn’t pleased with the effort put forth late in the game, when ASU had a chance to make a comeback but let UNM take the momentum back.
“Not even close,” Taylor said of the effort. “It was obvious. You can say one way or the other, we have seven newcomers, we have five returns, but New Mexico beat us in the hustle plays.”
The going doesn’t get any easier for the Sun Devils, who face a talented Alabama-Birmingham squad at Wells Fargo Arena on Saturday.
“They are going to be a really good ballclub,” Taylor said of UAB. “We’ve got to go home and try to figure out how to put Band-Aids on our sores right now and really pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and work on Arizona State basketball.”
Reach the reporter at andrew.gruman@asu.edu
