New Mexico men’s basketball earns No. 11 seed in return to NCAA Tournament

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Mar. 17—ALBUQUERQUE — A decade’s wait is finally over.

Memphis, the Lobos are on their way.

The University of New Mexico’s men’s basketball team will play its first game in the NCAA Tournament since 2014 on Friday against the Clemson Tigers of the vaunted Atlantic Coast Conference at 1:10 p.m. in the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tenn.

{p class=”p1″}Amid the pomp and circumstance of Selection Sunday, UNM knew it had a reserved spot in the NCAA field after it won the Mountain West conference tournament Saturday, securing the Lobos the conference’s automatic berth. All that remained to be learned Sunday was seeding, regional location and opponent, with New Mexico earning the No. 11 seed in the West portion of the bracket.

{p class=”p1″}This UNM team was a mishmashed group of veterans and celebrated newcomers cobbled together by a name-brand coach who stirred the echoes this season and brought the passion for Lobos hoops out of its dormancy.

{p class=”p1″}The group — led by 7-foot-tall center Sebastian Forsling carrying the team’s cherished new trophy down the escalators at the Albuquerque International Sunport — returned home to a heroes’ welcome Sunday morning from Las Vegas, Nev., less than 12 hours after becoming only the second team in the history of the conference’s tournament to win the bracket as a No. 6 seed. Hundreds of Lobos fans greeted the team at the airport, chanting and singing as some players high-fived well-wishers and others recorded the moment on their phones.

Thousands more braved the rainy, 40-something temperatures outside to file into The Pit for that afternoon’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show. Jaelen House was the first to arrive, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, clutching his Mountain West MVP trophy in both arms as he walked onto the floor with the band playing the school’s fight song.

With the players situated near midcourt and the live CBS broadcast playing out on big screens around the arena, the Lobos saw their name plastered on the screen in…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mexico-mens-basketball-earns-no-033400467.html

Author : The Santa Fe New Mexican

Publish date : 2024-03-18 03:34:00

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