Reality check

[topminer]

Still lots of work to be done so that our guys come together as a team (rebounding, defense, etc.).

 

[utep2step]

Yep.

One thing is the psychological aspect of this rivalry. UTEP has a bunch of new faces and I don't think they are approaching this rivalry as like going into a knife fight. NMSU obviously did last night.

 

[topminer]

Agree. It was as if they didn't know what kind of environment they walked into.

Best case scenario...this adds some necessary experience.

 

[miner661]

With as soundly as they were beaten last night, it should add fuel to their fire with the anticipated rematch looming. If they didn't quite comprehend the importance of the rivalry before the game, they certainly should now.

 

[MineroFanatico]

Personally, I thought the defensive effort on the court was good. However, we gave the ball away to many times ourselves for us to take advantage of the good defense. Also, as has been said all along and will continue to be said, we gave up far too many rebounds in our side of the court.

To minimize the damage of being a crappy rebounding team, we have to do a couple things well. One being, force our opponent into turnovers and minimize our own turnovers like we did against csu. Two, we also have to shoot the ball at a high clip and keep our opponents fg% lower than ours. Neither of these happened last night. We are not going to start rebounding well all of a sudden so turnovers and shooting percentage become that much more important in my opinion.

 

[Tucson_Miner]

We looked shell shocked and lethargic. Not sure the offense knows what to do. Too many times everyone was standing around the perimeter and NO ONE wanted the ball in their hands.

Also, Artis can't guard anyone and turned it over at the worst possible times when we had opportunities to cut the lead to 2.

 

[topminer]

As many have stated, turnovers were HUGE.