Lobos victorious over Victory in exhibition play

The New Mexico Lobos got double digit scoring from four players and scoring from 10 of 11 who played to open the 2012-13 season Wednesday night with a 105-64 beating of visiting Victory University in front of 12,440 at The Pit.

UNM was led by starting juniors Cameron Bairstow and guard Demetrius Walker, who each scored a team-high 22 points. Walker shot a scorching 8-of-10 from the field including 3-of-4 on three-pointers.

Bairstow, a forward from Brisbane, Australia, also pulled in eight rebounds while his countryman, sophomore guard Hugh Greenwood pulled in a game high 12 rebounds but scored no points from his point guard position.

"Not a lot of point guards get 12 rebounds and no points," said Lobos head coach Steve Alford. "But Hugh just plays so hard, and Hugh knows what the emphasis and knows what best helps us win games. That’s what Hugh does – he stabilizes us. We just need to get some of these other guards to rebound the same."

Junior guard Kendall Williams added 17 points and six assists while guard Tony Snell dropped in 15 points. Even walk on Chris Perez got in on the action, scoring on a lay up to finish the scoring for the Lobos, who posted their 17th consecutive exhibition win Wednesday night.

The Eagles of Victory, a private university situated in Memphis, Tenn. gave UNM a game early on, tying the game 8-8 on hot shooting form junior Tyrell Hursey and senior Keron Jackson. Hursey led all scorers with 28 points on 10-of-23 shooting, including 3-of-3 on treys. Jackson added a double-double – 15 points and 10 rebounds.

After falling behind 6-2 early, Victory then exchanged leads with New Mexico, holding a 17-16 advantage at 14:55 mark of the first half. But New Mexico went on a 12-3 run and never trailed again. The Lobos led 56-33 at halftime.

"I thought it was a really good dry run through for us," said Alford. "The last 10 minutes of both halves were really good offensively and defensively. We were pretty efficient for most of the night. But our defense for the first 10 minutes of each half wasn’t near where I’d like it. "

New Mexico finished the game shooting a 338-of-66 from the field (57.6%) and 21-of-28 (75%) on free throws. They also finished with 23 assists to 6 turnovers, something that Alford found encouraging – especially with the team looking at playing primarily a four guards line up.

" The positives are you’re going to have games when you’re going to have 23 assist and 8 turnovers because we do have four point guards out there so we have a lot of ball handlers," said Alford. "We’ve got to get more rebounds out of Nick and Chad… and they now that. They’re feeling themselves out."

New Mexico finishes up the exhibition portion of its schedule Monday night against Division II New Mexico Highlands. The Lobos open the regular season on Monday, Nov. 12 at midnight against Davidson as part of ESPN televisions 24 Hours of Hoops marathon.