For two days before Utah's showdown on Sunday with New Mexico,
Salon A of the Albuquerque Marriott resembled a war room. The
Utes' tapes of Lobos games were stacked on a table near a video
projector. Walls were papered with diagrams of New Mexico's
plays and Utah's counters to them. Flip charts detailing each
Lobos starter's strengths and weaknesses stood in the front of
the room. It seemed that everything that could possibly be known
about New Mexico was contained in that room, and the Utes spent
hours committing it to memory.
But all that time spent in preparation still wasn't enough.
After leading the game for all but the last 22 seconds,
previously undefeated Utah lost 77-74, a victim of the New
Mexico press late in the game. In falling to the top threat on
their regular-season schedule, the Utes, who are 18-1 and ranked
No. 5, exposed flaws in themselves and in the Lobos that suggest
neither team is headed for an NCAA regional final.
For Utah, its biggest strength—total preparation—may end up
being its biggest weakness. "I spent so much time on defense, I
didn't prepare us enough offensively," Utes coach Rick Majerus
said after the game. Utah has 17 baseline out-of-bounds plays in
its playbook, but Majerus couldn't draw up a single one when the
Utes needed to go the length of the court with 4.6 seconds left
after the Lobos went up by three. The reason: He was out of
timeouts. "I need my timeouts," says Majerus, who used his last
one with 59.3 seconds left.
How far can a team go in the NCAAs when it can't rely on sheer
athleticism, especially when facing unfamiliar teams on a day's
notice, which is the case in the second and fourth rounds of the
NCAAs? Last year the Utes had Keith Van Horn and what Majerus
says was "a much better team," and made it to the final eight.
This year their depth and stifling defense could take them to
the Sweet 16—but no further.
The prospects for the 16-3, 12th-ranked Lobos aren't much
different. New Mexico, the second-best team in the nation in
three-pointers made (9.9 per game), depends on arc artillery to
get defenses off the back of 6'8" junior center Kenny Thomas.
"We shoot post shots, and we shoot threes," says New Mexico
coach Dave Bliss. "We don't shoot too many of those 12-footers,
and a lot of that is to protect Kenny." Its offense tends to
founder, though, if the threes aren't falling, as it did in the
first half against the Utes when the Lobos made only three treys
and scored a mere 24 points.
Also, the tremendous home court advantage the Lobos enjoy in the
Pit may be a mixed blessing for them come tournament time. New
Mexico has won 38 straight over the last 2 1/2 seasons in its
deafening hole in the ground but has gone only 15-13 on the
road. "We play so many games here [18 last year, 16 this year],
we get used to 18,000 people shouting in your favor," says New
Mexico senior guard Royce Olney, who knocked down the winning
three-pointer against Utah from 22 feet. "On the road we
sometimes let little things get us down that we don't sweat at
home. I think we almost take it for granted that calls are going
to go our way here." (Certainly they did on Sunday. Utes guard
Andre Miller was poked in the eye on one play and knocked to the
ground on another—both without a whistle—while committing two
turnovers in the last 90 seconds.)
While both Utah and New Mexico have teams that deserve to be
ranked, this isn't the year either will break into the nation's
elite. Says Bliss, speaking perhaps for both teams, "We are only
what we are, and when we don't do what we are, we're not even
that."
Issue date: February 9, 1998
|
|
