Their head coach wasn’t there.
The UNM defense certainly didn’t appear to be there at times in the second half, either.
And in the end, a ferocious second-half shooting effort by a veteran Utah State Aggies squad was too much for the Lobos to hold off, falling to the visiting Aggies 90-87 in an overtime thriller in the Pit.
“I thought our kids really laid it out there all on line tonight,” said acting Lobos coach Eric Brown, who learned along with the rest of the team that head coach Richard Pitino would not coach after testing positive for COVID-19 on Saturday morning.