University of New Mexico Lobos Basketball: A Legacy of Triumph and Turbulence

The University of New Mexico Lobos men's basketball team, representing the university in NCAA Division I's Mountain West Conference, boasts a history as rich and captivating as the New Mexico landscape itself. From humble beginnings to periods of national prominence, the program has experienced both remarkable achievements and tumultuous challenges, shaping its identity and solidifying its place in college basketball lore. UNM established basketball as a varsity sport in 1899.

Early Years and the Roy Johnson Era (1899-1940)

Basketball at UNM started as a varsity sport in 1899, just eight years after the sport's invention. However, it wasn't until 1920 that the program began to take shape with the arrival of Roy W. Johnson. Johnson, nicknamed "Old Iron Head", was fundamental to the early development of Lobo athletics. The UNM gymnasium at the time was a small wooden building where the walls were out-of-bounds markers for basketball games. Basketball was primarily an intramural sport, with occasional games against other schools, including Albuquerque High School, and no regular schedule. Johnson set about building collegiate-level athletics facilities, performing some of the hard labor with his own hands. During his nearly 40 years at UNM, Johnson coached every men's sport the school offered, while teaching physical education. A decorated veteran who served in World Wars I and II, he was the UNM athletic director from 1920 to 1949. He established regularly scheduled games against regional colleges, and in 1931 UNM joined the Border Conference as a founding member. During a seven year stretch of Johnson's time as basketball coach, the Lobos posted a 95-31 (.754) record. Johnson coached the UNM basketball team for all but two seasons from 1920 to 1940. He soon oversaw the construction of Carlisle Gym. He also built the first grass football field and bleachers at UNM.

Post-War Struggles and the Dawn of the Bob King Era (1941-1962)

Johnson stepped down as head basketball coach after the 1939-40 season. The position passed to a few different coaches before Woody Clements took over 1944-51 and 1953-55, compiling a record of 113-119 (.487). The Lobos won the Border Conference in 1944 and 1945, and they appeared in the NAIA post-season tournament in 1947, losing to Hamline University in the first round. From 1951 to 1962, the Lobos competed in the Mountain States Conference, known at the time as the Skyline Eight. The Lobos had just two winning seasons between 1947 and King's arrival in 1962, and the team had gone a dismal 42-149 (.220) over the previous eight seasons. Lobo basketball first achieved national prominence under Bob King, who was previously an assistant coach at his alma mater, the University of Iowa.

The Bob King Dynasty (1962-1972): Building a Legacy

Lobo basketball first achieved national prominence after Bob King was hired as head coach in 1962. King transformed a moribund program into a consistent winner and produced future ABA MVP Mel Daniels. New Mexico joined the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) as a founding member before King's first season. His first team went 16-9, the best Lobo record in 17 years. King's impact was immediate. The Lobos won as many games in his first two seasons as they had won in the past seven seasons combined. They compiled a record of 116-44 (.725) in King's first six seasons. The following season, 1963-64, the Lobos won their first WAC championship, led by Ira Harge, who King had recruited from a junior college in Iowa. The team posted wins over Kansas and at Purdue and received a berth in the 1964 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The rise of the program continued in the 1964-65 season, led by sophomores Mel Daniels and Ben Monroe. After an early loss at Kansas, the Lobos won ten straight, later building a 19-3 record and attaining a #10 national ranking, their first appearance in the AP poll. They dropped their next four games on the road, however, including a one-point loss at #10 BYU. They were again invited to the NIT, where they lost to St. John's to finish 19-8. Daniels averaged over 17 points and 11 rebounds a game, providing the fast-growing Lobo fan base a preview of things to come. Due to the success of King's first three seasons, attendance at Johnson Gym more than doubled, and plans to build a larger arena began to take shape. In the 1965-66 season, Daniels averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds a game, and the Lobos raced out to an 11-1 record after beating #7 BYU.

Read also: New Mexico State Basketball

The Pit is Born

University Arena opened as the home venue of the Lobos on December 1, 1966. Because the playing surface is 37 feet below grade, students nicknamed the arena "The Pit," and the nickname stuck. The team began the 1966-67 season ranked 6th in the country and rose to #5 before winning at #2 UTEP, the defending national champion and highest-ranked team New Mexico had ever beaten at that point. The Lobos reached #3 with an 11-1 record but then lost four straight and fell out of the rankings. Despite a disappointing WAC campaign, they received a bid to the NIT. The Lobos beat Syracuse in the first round before losing to Rutgers, finishing the season 19-8 and ranked #18 in the UPI. Daniels averaged 21.5 points and 11.6 rebounds a game, finishing his career with a still-team record 44 double-doubles, and he became the first Lobo to be named as an All-American. He was selected as the ninth pick overall in the 1967 NBA draft by the Cincinnati Royals, but he chose to play in the fledgling American Basketball Association (ABA), becoming one of its greatest all-time players. Many star players of the King era include Ira Harge, Mel Daniels, and Willie Long.

Stoking the popularity of Lobo basketball by this time was the success of two longtime rivals. New Mexico began playing New Mexico State in 1904, currently totaling over 200 games; they first played UTEP in 1929, with over 140 games total. Don Haskins took over at UTEP in 1961 and led the Miners to a 128-32 (.800) record in his first six seasons, including a 28-1 national championship season in 1965-66. New Mexico State hired Lou Henson as head coach in 1966, and like the Lobos under King, in his second season the Aggies began achieving national rankings and post-season tournament appearances. They went 74-14 (.841) from 1967 to 1970, including a 27-3 season in 1969-70 in which they were ranked in the top five most of the year, culminating in a Final Four appearance. The Lobos, Aggies, and Miners played one another twice every season, home-and-away, and a fierce rivalry grew among them.

The Lobos lost Daniels and Monroe to graduation and were picked in the 1967-68 preseason to finish last in the WAC. Instead, they started the season 17-0, rising to #6 before beating #5 Utah in the Pit, propelling the Lobos to #4. Four starters averaged in double-figures in scoring, led by senior guard Ron Nelson at 19.5 points a game. They swept their regular season match-ups against New Mexico State, with both teams ranked in the top ten at the time of their second game. The Lobos won the WAC championship, Nelson was named a Helms All-American, and the Lobos earned their first NCAA tournament appearance. They entered the tournament 23-3 and ranked #6. They hosted their first-round game in The Pit but lost to unranked Santa Clara. The 1968-69 season began with high expectations and the Lobos ranked in the top ten, but they dropped out after a string of road losses. Howard led a young team, scoring 19.7 per game, with sophomores Willie Long and Petie Gibson beginning their runs as three-year starters. The Lobos swept #8 New Mexico State, with Gibson hitting a memorable last-second shot in the latter game, leading to a brief return to the national rankings. The team finished the season 17-9 but failed to receive an NIT berth. The Lobos slumped to a 42-36 record over the next three seasons. After the 1971-72 season, assistant coach Norm Ellenberger was elevated to head coach, and King served as Assistant Athletics Director the next season. King then left to become head coach and Athletics Director at Indiana State University. In 1976, he recruited future Hall of Famer Larry Bird to ISU, where he led the Sycamores to a 48-12 record in his first two seasons. In a formal ceremony on December 1, 1992, the basketball court at University Arena was dedicated and named Bob King Court in honor of the man who built the program and made The Pit possible.

Bob King transformed the New Mexico program, becoming known as the "Architect of Lobo Basketball." Since his arrival at UNM, the Lobos have won over sixty percent of their games and earned over thirty berths to post-season tournaments, while suffering only five losing seasons. In 1992, UNM announced that the basketball court at University Arena would be named in honor of King. "Bob King Court" was dedicated at formal ceremonies on December 1, 1992, the 26th anniversary of the opening of The Pit.

The Norm Ellenberger Era (1972-1979): Success and Scandal

When Bob King moved on to coach at Indiana State, his assistant, Norm Ellenberger, was named head coach. Under Norm Ellenberger, the Lobos won WAC championships in 1974 and 1978 and compiled an overall record of 134-62 (.684). Ellenberger was named head coach in March 1972 after serving as an assistant under King since 1967. It was Ellenberger's first Division I head coaching position, but he made up for what he lacked in experience with energy and enthusiasm. Like King, Ellenberger got off to a fast start in his first two seasons. In 1972-73, the Lobos raced out to a 9-0 record, including road wins at Oregon State and eventual Southwest Conference champion Texas Tech, leading to their first appearance in the national rankings in nearly four years. The team was led by the strong inside scoring and rebounding of Darryl Minniefield, Bernard Hardin, and Mark Saiers. In late February the Lobos were 21-3, ranked #15, and leading the WAC, before losing their last two games and finishing second in conference.

The 1973-74 Lobos began the season 12-0, launching them to a #8 ranking. Hardin led the way, averaging 17 points a game, and the team became the highest scoring Lobo squad to date at over 84 points a game. Bill Hagins replaced Minniefield, and the team was again dominant inside. After a string of road losses, the Lobos recovered to win six of seven and secure the WAC championship in a strong season for the league when five of eight teams were ranked at some point. The Lobos earned their second trip to the NCAA tournament and tallied their first tournament victory, downing Idaho State before losing to San Francisco in the second round. The 1974-75 Lobo team was depleted by graduation and slipped to a 13-13 record. Ellenberger began relying heavily on recruiting Junior College (JC) transfers, a tactic that would lead to his best season as Lobo coach but later to his downfall. The 1975-76 team improved to 16-11 with a largely mercenary squad of JC transfers who would later quit the team before the end of the season. A memorable highlight of the season was the first game in a brief but intense rivalry with UNLV before the teams were in the same conference. Ellenberger was well-respected as a teacher of defense, and he was a frequent participant in basketball coaching camps and workshops, where he became friends with UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian.

The 1976-77 team featured JC arrivals Michael Cooper, Marvin Johnson, and Willie Howard, the nucleus for a successful and exciting two-year run. Cooper is among the best overall players ever produced by the Lobo program and was named an All-American in 1978. He averaged 16 points and five rebounds a game as a Lobo, also leading the team in assists and steals. "Coop" later became a mainstay of the "Showtime" Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s, winning five NBA championships over a 12-year career. His defensive prowess made him an eight-time recipient of NBA All-Defensive Team honors, as well as the Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1987. By contrast, Marvin "Automatic" Johnson was one of the greatest scorers in Lobo history. He became the fourth leading scorer in school history at the time in just two seasons, set single season records for total points, season points per game (24.0), career points per game (21.9), and he scored a still-school record 50 points in a single game. Willie Howard was a talented inside player averaging 13 points and six rebounds a game, frequently providing explosive scoring off the bench. Further JC transfers Jimmy Allen and Will Smiley completed a strong Lobo front line. The injection of talent made the Lobos exciting and competitive, but they took time to gel as a team, beginning the season 6-4 with a couple of disappointing losses. They beat Iowa and USC on the way to another showdown with #9 UNLV, losing a high-scoring game, then losing to #10 Arizona.

Before the 1977-78 season, Ellenberger installed what he called the "Equal Opportunity Motion Offense", a run-and-gun attack emphasizing picks and passing as players rotate through each position, taking advantage of his versatile, athletic lineup. The scheme also employed a full-court pressing, trapping defense to generate points off of turnovers. The team played at a frenetic pace and led the nation in scoring at 97.5 points per game. Phil Abney and Russell Saunders were JC additions; Abney initially backed up Howard but later moved into the starting line-up. The Lobos stood at 7-2 after losing to #10 Syracuse, then rattled off 14 straight wins, including a home-and-away sweep of #9 UNLV, pushing them into the national rankings and eventually into the top ten. Attendance at The Pit jumped to over 17,000 a game, second most in the nation, as fan enthusiasm soared. The Lobos won their fourth WAC championship with a 13-1 league record, losing only at ranked Utah, and entered the NCAA tournament ranked #5 and seeded second in the West Regional, with the opportunity to play in The Pit for the regional final with a win.

The 1978-79 Lobo squad returned starters Abney and Saunders while adding another strong JC class including Larry Belin. The team began the season 8-3 but struggled away from The Pit, losing its first seven road games. The team finally broke through, winning another exciting game at UNLV, beginning a string of nine wins in its last ten games. The strong finish earned the Lobos an NIT bid, where they lost to Texas A&M, finishing the season 19-10. The 1979-80 roster appeared once again loaded with talent, and fan expectations were again high, but disaster struck the program in the early weeks of the season as the "Lobogate" scandal unfolded. Leading players like Belin lost eligibility and were dropped from the team. The "Lobogate" scandal involved forged academic transcripts, payments made for bogus Junior College credits, and other devices to attain eligibility for players who lacked academic credentials. In an investigation into illegal gambling, the FBI had placed a wiretap on the phone of a major Lobo booster. While Ellenberger was visiting this booster, in November 1979, he took a call on the tapped phone from assistant coach Manny Goldstein. They discussed an arrangement to transfer bogus credits from a California Junior College to the office of the UNM registrar. Based on this conversation, the FBI launched a full investigation into the Lobo basketball program. Subsequent investigation turned up a manufactured college seal from Mercer County Community College in New Jersey, along with blank transcripts and records of previous forgery.

His teams were frequently ranked among the Top 25 in the nation. The turning point in Ellenberger's career came with "Lobogate," a lurid episode involving forged academic transcripts, payments made for bogus junior-college credits to keep players eligible, and other devices permitting athletes entirely lacking academic credentials to be represented as college students while playing on Ellenberger's team. The episode began with an FBI wiretap on the phone of a prominent Lobo booster, recording a conversation in which Ellenberger arranged with assistant coach Manny Goldstein to transfer bogus credits from a California junior college to the office of the UNM registrar. Chapter one ("Lost in Loboland") of William C. Ellenberger managed to remain popular in Albuquerque even after the Lobo-gate recruiting scandal decimated the program, forced him to resign as head coach, and left him with criminal liability. An NCAA investigation into Lobo recruiting practices found 57 rule violations, and Ellenberger himself was convicted on 21 counts of fraud in 1981.

Read also: History of the Block 'M'

Rebuilding After "Lobogate" (1979-1999)

In the wake of Lobo-gate, assistant Charlie Harrison was elevated to head coach for the 1979-80 season, leading a team made up of mostly walk-on players. The team limped to a woeful 6-22 record, as the program was forced to rebuild virtually from scratch. Gary Colson was brought to the program in 1980, inheriting the messy aftereffects of Lobo-gate. Colson was known as a genuinely nice man who took on the task of turning the Lobos into a winning team. However, he did fail to live up to the high expectations of Lobo basketball fans. It took four years for Colson to reach postseason play. In 1984, they reached the National Invitational Tournament. This started an 11 year postseason streak for the Lobos. The 1986-87 was Colson's best season as Lobo coach. His team posted a 25-10 win-loss record, but lost in the Western Athletic Conference finals to Wyoming.

Dave Bliss helped the Lobos return to glory. He took the team to the NCAA tournament six of last seven seasons, reaching the second round in the last four years. Longley had left in 1991 for a career in the NBA. The Lobos were ranked among the AP Top 25 team almost every week during Thomas' four-season career, cracking the Top 10 seven times, and the team reached the NCAA tournament all four seasons. Thomas was selected as the 22nd pick in the 1999 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets.

The Mountain West Conference Era (1999-Present)

In 1999, the Lobos left the WAC to become a founding member of the Mountain West Conference (MWC), their present league. After Bliss left to become head coach at Baylor, former Manhattan and St. John's coach Fran Fraschilla coached the Lobos from 1999 to 2002. Ritchie McKay proclaimed that coaching the Lobos was a dream come true. His father, Joe McKay, was a starter for the Lobos from 1960-63, and he said he was happy to return to Albuquerque. McKay was seen as a second-tier candidate for the coaching job by Lobo fans, in large part due to his sudden, late-night appointment. McKay had a mixed record coming in, but getting rid of memories from recent years provided relief and hope for fans. Coach McKay faced a major rebuilding project when he took over as head coach in 2002. The team was short on talent and scholarships, and once again had to resort to walk-on players. One player, Ruben Douglas, would provide a bright spot for the 2002-03 squad, leading the NCAA in scoring with 28.0 points per game.

The Lobo program abruptly stopped its slide and began to recover in December 2003. After sitting out the first semester for eligibility reasons, Danny Granger and Troy DeVries made their Lobo debuts. DeVries was a solid, experienced player who stabilized a young backcout - and who will play professionally in the German Bundesliga beginning in 2005. Granger was among the best few players in Lobo history. In 2004-05, Granger carried the Lobos to a 26-7 record, the Mountain West Conference (MWC) tournament championship, and back to the NCAA tournament. The Lobos won the MWC basketball tournament championship in 2005. In June 2005, Granger was selected as the 17th pick in the first round of the NBA draft by the Indiana Pacers.

Steve Alford was named head coach of the Lobos on March 23, 2007, after stepping down from the same position at the University of Iowa. His First year, He led the Lobos back to a winning record, 24-9. Alford's first year record was the best in Lobos history since Bliss' departure. He led the team to the NIT, but the Lobos lost to Cal 66-68 in the first round. The Lobos finally beat Utah in Salt Lake City for the first time since 1989. The Lobos were third place in the 2007 MWC season. The # 8 nationally ranked (Associated Press) Lobos won the Mountain West Conference outright for the 2009-10 season with a 28-3 record. They defeated TCU 73-66 on March 3, 2010 to clinch the regular-season title outright.

Traditions and The Lobo Spirit

The Lobo is the official mascot of the University of New Mexico. Lobo, the Spanish word for "wolf," was suggested by George S. Bryan, a sophomore at UNM, in 1920. Human mascots, dubbed "Lobo Louie" and "Lobo Lucy," currently rouse crowds at New Mexico athletic events. For some years in the 1980s, a popular chant among Lobo fans was, "Everyone's a Lobo, Woof Woof Woof!" Coach Dave Bliss phased out the cheer shortly after his arrival in the early 1990s.

The Lobo Howl is held at the earliest time the Men's and Women's Basketball Teams can practice, which used to be midnight on the first day of practice. Over the years it has evolved into a family-like atmosphere, including alumni scrimmages, team scrimmages, 3-pt. shooting contests, slam dunk contests, and player introductions. Student-athletes from both squads also take the opportunity to sign autographs. New Mexico students attempt to read the newspaper as the opposing team is being introduced. They shake the paper as they read. As each player of the opposing team is introduced the students holler "Who's that?" When the opposing team's introductions are finished, the students crumple up the paper into a ball and throw it into the air.

Students hold their arms above their heads when players are shooting free throws during a basketball contest. When the home team is shooting a free throw, and successfully completes the task, the students will drop their arms to their side, in addition to uttering a "whoof".

The loyal sons are we. GO! FIGHT! HAIL! HAIL! During the "GO! FIGHT! WIN!" and "HAIL! HAIL!

In basketball competitions, when New Mexico is all but assured of a win, an impromptu version of Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him) Goodbye" is performed to wish the competitor a farewell and good luck in future games. This may be accompanied by a rousing chant of "o-ver-ra-ted", if in fact the quality of the visiting team's play is not up to the standards of their current ranking.

The student section in The Pit is named Section 26, due to the number of the section that the students sit in. The section was officially named in 2007, and over the last couple of years the section is becoming one of the more intimidating student sections in the nation. Section 26 members receive a howl sheet before each game with opposing teams rosters, stats, and embarrassing information as well as information about upcoming games.

A Program Forged in The Pit

The most renowned enduring feature of the Lobo basketball program is its home venue, known as "The Pit", recognized as one of the best college basketball arenas in the country. The Pit opened in 1966 and the Lobos have been dominant playing there, winning over 80 percent of their games, while regularly placing among national leaders in attendance.

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