Lobos rally to take halftime lead

Dairese Gary hit a one-handed runner in the lane with five seconds remaining to give top-seeded New Mexico a 39-38 halftime advantage in the first semifinal of the Mountain West Conference men’s tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night.
The Lobos trailed by as many as 12 points early in the game against No. 4 San Diego State.
Gary has 14 points to lead New Mexico, but Aztec junior Billy White is terrorizing the Lobos in his hometown.
The Green Valley High School graduate has 17 points at the break and has gone to the rim at well against every defender New Mexico tries to deploy on him.
He’s also making his free throws, knocking down all four tries in the first half.
Will Brown has been a spark off the bench for the Lobos, with seven points and three rebounds.
San Diego State jumped out quickly and led 18-6, but Will Brown scored five points to key a 7-0 New Mexico run to tie the game, 26-26.
It stayed fairly close the rest of the half.
The Lobos went 12-for-12 from the free-throw line in the half. The Aztecs knocked down an uncharacteristic 5 of 8 attempts from beyond the arc.
Roman Martinez picked up his second foul New Mexico with 6:42 to play in the half and didn’t play the rest of the way after hitting two 3-pointers early.

Fast start

Kawhi Leonard hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give San Diego State a 6-0 lead just 1:30 into the game.
Phillip McDonald then airballed a 3-point attempt from the corner and Malcolm Thomas got an open dunk to extend the lead to eight points.
It just got worse for New Mexico as A.J. Hardeman missed a dunk and Billy White responded with yet another 3-pointer.
It was 11-0 when McDonald finally got the Lobos on the board with a putback.

Taking in the action

UNLV’s assistant coaches are watching the game just one row off the court.
They hope to be scouting an opponent for tomorrow’s championship game, though if the Rebels lose to BYU tonight, their preparation will go to waste.
Steve Henson drew a technical foul last night and said he couldn’t remember the last one whistled against him.
Brice Massamba and David Foster got into a brief shoving match after a foul was called for some physical interior play.
A Utah assistant yelled something at Massamba as he was going back to the bench, and Henson apparently told him that the UNLV staff could handle its own players.
The brief interaction didn’t appear to be warranting of a technical foul.