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Coming into Saturday, the Utah Valley men's basketball team was riding high. The Wolverines had won eight straight games and were 4-0 in Western Athletic Conference play. UVU was also off to the best start in program history at 15-5.
It had the Wolverines dreaming of a potential WAC championship and top seed in the WAC tournament in Las Vegas in March.
However, Zach Lofton and New Mexico State had other plans in store for UVU when the two teams met in Las Cruces on Saturday.
Lofton and the Aggies brought UVU back to earth with a dominating 86-59 win at the Pan American Center. New Mexico State handed UVU a dose of its own medicine, hitting 15 3-pointers, outrebounding UVU 37-26 and holding UVU 22 points below its season average.
In fact, NMSU was so good on the defensive end, UVU's leading scorer, Akolda Manyang, had just one point in the contest. The starting five for UVU all averaged in double figures, with Manyang at 14.2, Kenneth Ogbe at 13.9, Conner Toolson at 12.3 and Jake Toolson at 12.0.
However, on Saturday, Ogbe was the lone starter in double figures for UVU with 13, all of which came in the first half. Ogbe was 0-of-3 in the second half despite playing 18 minutes.
Beginning WAC play with four straight wins by an average margin of 25.5 had UVU believing it belonged in talks for WAC supremacy. And why not? UVU was leading or at the top of every statistical category in the WAC and had dominated conference opponents as it should have.
But New Mexico State is king of the WAC and had a revenge factor on its mind coming into Saturday.
UVU was the only conference opponent to win since 2012. New Mexico State had a 40-game, home conference winning streak snapped by the Wolverines on Feb. 23, 2017. Ogbe and Ivory Young each finished with 16 points while Brandon Randolph and Jordan Poydras also finished in double figures with 15 and 14 points, respectively.
But Saturday night, the rematch was different. UVU got within five at the 2:52 mark of the first half on an Ogbe 3-pointer. However, the Wolverines didn't score the remainder of the half and trailed by 10.
Just as UVU had done a year ago, New Mexico State came out on fire in the second half and used a 21-4 run to completely overwhelm the Wolverines.
Now UVU will have to regroup, but things don't get any easier. The Wolverines host Grand Canyon on Jan. 27 in the UCCU Center in Orem. GCU is on its way to another win, which would put the ’Lopes at 14-6 overall and 4-1 in WAC play, tied with UVU for second place in the conference.
In the Mark Pope era of Utah Valley basketball, the Wolverines have never beaten GCU. Since the 2014-15 season, UVU is 0-8 against the Dan Marjerle coached ’Lopes.
Now that UVU has been given the same dose of humble pie it has been handing out to start conference play, what will the Wolverines do? In all reality, the season comes down to three games in March in the Orleans Arena.
However, with a quality team filled with seniors with a chip on their shoulder, winning a second WAC regular season championship since 2013-14 is something that UVU is still very much in contention for despite the loss to New Mexico State on Saturday.
Kyle McDonald is sports fan who loves the Chicago Cubs. Follow him on Twitter at @kylesportsbias
