Point guard Colby Garland had his 12th straight 20-point game, but it wasn’t enough to keep San Jose State’s run in the Mountain West Tournament alive as the Spartans fell to New Mexico 93-77 in a Thursday quarterfinal.
The No. 11-seeded Spartans (9-24, 3-13 Mountain West) kept things tight in the first half, but a 10-3 run by the No. 3 Lobos (23-9, 13-7) entering halftime to give them a 43-46 lead at the break. That gap ballooned to 22 points in the second half as New Mexico shot 67.7 percent from the field after halftime.
Forward Adrian Myers added 19 points for SJSU, including 3-of-6 shooting on 3-pointers, while Sadraque NgaNga had 15, with a trio of 3s on seven attempts. Jermaine Washington added 11 points as he and Melvin Bell Jr. played all 40 minutes as the Spartans had a six-man rotation until the final minutes of the game.
“It’s tough coming out competing every night,” Garland told reporters. “But fatigue or not, we can’t make excuses for ourselves. We just didn’t get it done.”
New Mexico had all five starters in double-digits, led by Tomislav Buljan with 19 points and Luke Haupt with 18. Uriah Tenette and Jake Hall each had 16.
The Lobos dominated inside, outscoring the Spartans 56-26 in the paint. They also had a rebounding advantage of 38-24.
San Jose State’s season — its fifth under Tim Miles — is now wrapped one night after they became the second No. 11 seed ever to advance in the conference tournament, beating Boise State. Miles acknowledged the difficulty facing his program.
“We’re about 10th out of 11 in payroll,” Miles said of their conference standing. “It’s hard to compete unless we can get up into the top third of the league.”
New Mexico moves on to a Friday semifinal, where they’ll face No. 2 seed San Diego State.