Coach Alford Answers Howler Questions
Early in November the Howler interviewed head Lobo basketball Coach Steve Alford, who had just begun work with his new Lobo team. His answers to our questions appear below. We’ll follow up at the end of the season to see how his answers change.
Now approaching MWC play, the Lobos stand at 9-2, including a recent win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The Red Raiders’ coach, Bobby Knight, had coached Alford at Indiana.
What were you surprised by at UNM?
I don’t know that I’ve been surprised by anything because Dr. Schmidly and Paul Krebs explained to me what the university was all about and their vision and goal and I believed them and trusted that and all of that has come to be true. I don’t know if there have been any surprises.
What has been your biggest challenge here?
Probably the biggest challenge is correcting a mess that we have academically. We’ve had a very poor APR, we’ve had a very poor graduation rate, and we’ve had a very poor attitude among players about the importance of going to class and getting an education. Probably the thing we’ve spent more time on than recruiting, scheduling, basketball stuff, has been changing the climate here academically of what is expected of our student athletes and not compromising those things.
What has been the players’ biggest adjustment to you?
I would say along those same lines, that players like to test you. I think each of them would be able to tell you that in testing us we have not wavered in what we think is important in our system. That’s probably been their biggest adjustment. They’ve all tested and they’ve all failed in trying to get us to compromise. They’ve got to buy into it. They know it’s not anything we’re doing negative or personal. We’re just trying to make life a little better for them when they get done with basketball. But for some players that’s hard to understand.
What does the team do best?
We’re probably still trying to figure that out. We are a team that can shoot the basketball even with Tony being out. We’re a team that’s going to be able to score. It’s a team right now that’s trying to find themselves defensively. They’ve been a lot of fun to coach. They’re a lot of good guys and we’ve got good chemistry right now.
What does the team need to improve on the most?
Defense. That’s been the thing we’ve spent the most time on. We just haven’t been a good defensive team. We weren’t in the Bahamas in the spring. That’s carried forward now through 20-some practices. If we’re going to be any good at all and have a chance to win games we’re going to have to get a lot better at the defensive end.
What should we watch for on the court?
I hope the thing we instill in the players here this first year is a sense of pride—that they understand what the word New Mexico means on the front of their jersey and they take a lot of pride in that. That they give it everything they’ve got. That they play as hard as they can. That they play unselfishly on both ends of the floor. We’re in a win loss business. Obviously we want to win more than we lose, but in this first year we want to establish doing it the right way. All the habits we’re trying to teach these guys on and off the floor [are aimed at] understanding what that is, doing that job, and doing it the right way all the time. Hopefully the fans will see that develop over the year.
Tell us how it felt to play your first game at the Pit.
It was great. It was still an exhibition came. The thing I was excited about was to have 12,000 people here at an exhibition game. That doesn’t happen across the country. I’ve known of the great support that we have here, and I hope that only continues to grow. I’m really looking forward to the home opener against Eastern Washington because that’s a real game. That matters. That counts.* I couldn’t be more excited to be the head coach here.
*The Lobos won, 92-57.