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The New Mexico Lobos will welcome the North Texas Mean Green into The Pit Tuesday night. Game time is at 7 pm Mountain, and will be on the Mountain West Network and the Lobo Radio Network.
The Lobos will be looking for their second straight win, after beating Central Arkansas 82-70 on Sunday to move to 5-4 on the season. The Mean Green will be looking for their third straight win, after beating Texas-Arlington 63-61 Saturday to move to 10-1 on the season.
The Lobos broke their three game losing streak last time out with the aforementioned win. Sunday’s game was the Lobo debut for Carlton Bragg and he delivered big; scoring 12 of his 16 points in the second half. Makuach Maluach had 22 points on Sunday and Anthony Mathis dropped 13. The Lobos will need more help from Vance Jackson and Dane Kuiper who had one point and zero respectively against Central Arkansas.
Defensively the Lobos played much better. The 70 points were the lowest allowed all season by the Lobos. The Lobos held Central Arkansas to 39% shooting from the field, and out rebounded the Bears 49-38.
The Mean Green come into Tuesday’s game with a 10-1 record. That might seem impressive, but it also is a little skewed. Three of those 10 wins came against Division II opponents, and of their seven D-1 wins just two have come against teams with winning records; those are Hawaii and Indiana State. The lone Mean Green loss on the season was a 73-57 loss at Oklahoma.
The Mean Green feature four guards in their starting lineup. Their top player is Ryan Woolridge, a 6’3” 175 guard who wears #0. Woolridge had 14 points against Texas-Arlington, and had a triple-double against Indiana State. Michael Miller is a nice compliment to Woolridge, as he has had five games in double figures this season, including a 17 point performance against Texas-Arlington. Jorden Duffy is up and down for the Mean Green; he had 23 points against Indiana State, but was scoreless against Texas-Arlington.
The short starting lineup for North Texas will mean this will be an up and down game all night. If the Lobos can get repeat performances from Bragg, Maluach, and Mathis they should win. With more of an output from Jackson and Kuiper this should be a bit of an easier game. Hopefully the Lobos aren’t looking ahead to Saturday’s game against Penn and take care of business Tuesday.