4-3 posting on Covers this season, last post on 2/3
Play: Wyoming / New Mexico Over 128.5
Under Steve Alford the past two seasons, New Mexico was known as a very defensive minded ball club – ranking inside the top 20 in DE both seasons. In fact, they never ranked outside of the top 100 in his 6 years there. But now Alford has moved on to UCLA, and in has stepped his long-time assistant Craig Neal. The defensive intensity has slipped this season with the Lobos entering tonight with the #113 adjD in the country at 1.012 ppp.
But a defensive slip is not the angle for backing tonight’s over. Where New Mexico has slipped on the defensive side of the ball, they have more than made up for it on the offensive side this season. In fact, this is the most efficient Lobo team on offense since KenPom began posting his statistics and come in to tonight’s match-up with an adjO of 1.141 ppp (#26 nationally). In fact, through 9 games of the MWC schedule, this year’s New Mexico team is actually the most offensively efficient team the conference has seen since BYU in 2007 (Lobos w/ OE of 115.6 in conference). Though their shooting is average, they don’t turn the ball over (#25 TO%), get to the FT line (#32 FT rate), and share the ball (#21 A/FGM). Throw in the well-documented home court advantage that The Pit provides and we see a team scoring 1.20 ppp in 4 conference home games.
On the flip side, we have a Wyoming team that plays extremely slow – in fact they are the 5th slowest team in the country at 60.9 possessions. Not the best team to have involved in an over. But I believe there is some value in the fact that this actually the most efficient offense (106.0 OE) and least efficient defense (98.8 DE) under Larry Shyatt. Furthermore, both of these efficiency ratings move in our favor when you look at conference-only statistics: OE increases to 108.3 and DE increases to 102.3.
These two did meet in Laramie back on 1/8 – an overtime win for New Mexico that saw 128 points in regulation. But one difference between that game and this game will be the absence of Josh Adams, second leading scorer and team leader in assists for Cowboys. Adams has been suspended one game by the MWC for his actions Saturday vs Utah St. But these types of situations often bond a team in that one game. Look no further than tweets from Larry Nance Jr (team leader in points and rebounds) on Monday to support that line of thinking: “All of this is just added motivation which is scary for a team like us to have.. We’ll be fine. We’ll be just fine”. Throw in the fact that it is a revenge spot for a home loss in OT, and I think we get Wyoming’s best effort tonight.
Due to their style, there is always the chance that Wyoming games are low scoring. However, assuming the game sees at least 60 possessions (KenPom predicts 60) and the offensive efficiency that both have demonstrated in conference play, it will not take much to get this over tonight’s total. Throw in the motivation factor and what should set up as a close game, very likely that a late game fouling scenario sets up as well.
Good luck if you decide to make a play 
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