NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The road calls as the Lobo men’s basketball team prepares for only their second road trip of the season. The Lobos will meet up with the University of Alabama Birmingham in the first round of the Las Vegas invitational Thanksgiving day, and its’ all business.
“You know when we go out to obviously Vegas, we’re not there to party,” says head coach Richard Pitino. “That’s not why we’re going to Las Vegas. We’re going there to see if we can beat a terrific UAB team, then whoever is out in front of us. I don’t want to put a million rules on them when we go travel, I don’t. I want to trust them. I want to treat them like they’re adults but there is a responsibility they need to live up to when you’re representing the University of New Mexico.”
The game against UAB will start at 5 p.m. on FS1.
On to the gridiron, high school football wraps up this week. In class 6-A, Rio Rancho is looking to get revenge against its district rival Cleveland. The two teams met in week ten of the regular season with the Storm coming from behind to stay perfect and hand the Rams their first and only loss.
Rio Rancho went up by 20 points before the Storm rallied to win. “Paying attention to detail, fixing the little things that we screwed up the first time around. When you get a lead and then you kind of blow some assignments or you just don’t take care of the little things, they come back to bite you. So, it’s just fixing those things,” said Rams head coach Gerard Pannoni.
Tune in to Football Friday Night for more information on this weeks’ matchups.
As the season ends for high school football, it also will end for the Lobos. Quarterback Isaiah Chavez will try to suit up for the final time of the season and is giving his seniors one last victory. “You know we always want to send them out with a win,” says Chavez. “You know unfortunately for a lot of those guys, there haven’t been a lot of wins around here. They could have left, they could have took a different route. But they chose to stay here. It takes a lot of courage to stay here and I have no hard feelings against those guys if they left. But I mean those guys are my brothers so send them out with a win that’s the goal.”
The Lobos will host Utah State on Friday with kickoff at 11 a.m.
