By Mark Smith
Enchantment Sports
Editor in Chief
I’ve been planning to write an end-of-year column about Lobo basketball.
I wasn’t planning to write it this week.
The San Diego Union-Tribune and Albuquerque Journal have both reported that the New Mexico men’s basketball team has cancelled its two game-series this week with San Diego State.
The teams are supposed to meet for the first time tonight in Lubbock, Texas.
As of last night, however, UNM had not released any statement about the games being canceled or postponed, and Chelsea Pitvorec, associate director of athletic communications, told Enchantment Sports:
“An official determination regarding our games against San Diego State has not been made.”
But while UNM has made no statement about the games being cancelled or postponed, it also has not put out the traditional pregame release about the games, either.
Which again, start tonight.
This is some crazy season.
The fans are going to continue to go bonkers — those still remaining — and continue calling for the heads of the main two people seemingly responsible for this mess:
Coach Paul Weir and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Just don’t try to call KQTM sports talk radio to give your opinions about the latter.
On Tuesday, co-hosts Scott Galetti and Sam Hauser, steered their callers — both of them — away from criticism of the governor . And later, Galetti actually instructed any others would-be callers not to talk about MLG — despite her being the most controlling governor in the country, who has made UNM and New Mexico State sports teams live, practice and play outside of the state nearly all season — and has well as decimated the state’s prep sports.
Na, MLG’s not part of the subject matter, is it KQTM?
Got to play that liberal kissy-kiss card, you know.
And Robert Portnoy and the Sports Animal, as usual, obliged as well.
Weir was scheduled to be on his weekly Lobo Talk radio show on Tuesday, but didn’t appear. Portnoy instead interviewed the Lobo volleyball and tennis coaches.
Ah, hard-hitting, in-depth radio journalism.
KKOB/KNML program director Jared “Let’s help our Lobos hide anyway we can” Hart and Cumulus strike again.
Still, there are much deeper issues with the Lobo program, and it’s coming to the surface in a very ugly way.
Despite the best efforts of Cumulus and 101.7 The Team.
And if the Lobo season, indeed is finished, the Mountain West Conference can’t be too happy.
San Diego State and Colorado State are battling for NCAA Tournament bids, and this could deny them two very, very important games — and almost certain wins.
Will they at least count as forfeits? It’s not fair to the Aztecs and Rams to just wipe the games out, unless there are COVID-19 implications — which reports say is not the case.
And what happens to the TV money from CBS, which is supposed to broadcast the games?
I didn’t hear those subjects come up during a painful couple hours of listening to sports talk on Tuesday. Maybe they will now that I mention it.
Painful? Yeah, yeah, my mistake, Marvin Gaye.
Hey, this is a huge story and I was told the Journal’s Geoff Grammer would be on KNML, which he was, and I knew he would have some facts about this mess. So I broke down and listened to local radio for once.
In the meantime, I trust Geoff will have much more today and we will try to post more when we receive information.
And as for that year-end column, it’s still going to be a while.
Mark Smith has worked in New Mexico sports media for more than four decades, and is one of the most decorated sports journalists in state history. Smith has won more than 30 combined awards in print, television and radio and has been honored nationally for investigative reporting. He is the editor in chief of Enchantment Sports. Contact him at mark.enchantmentsportsNM@gmail.com.
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