DAILY LOBO new mexico
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The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
March 7, 2014
UNM takes on SDSU Saturday at Viejas Arena by J.R. Oppenheim
assistantsports@dailylobo.com @JROppenheim Weeks ago San Diego State and New Mexico positioned themselves for a seasonending battle for the Mountain West regularseason men’s basketball title. Both sides accomplished their tasks and that showdown has come to fruition. The Lobos, ranked No. 21 in the nation, travel to Viejas Arena Saturday to take on the No. 10 Aztecs with the title and a top seed on the line. UNM’s win over SDSU on Feb. 22 forced a tie for the league lead and both teams won their ensuing games. The winner will receive the No. 1 seed for next week’s Mountain West Basketball Championship along with the regular-season trophy. The loser is guaranteed the No. 2 seed because both UNM and SDSU hold a fivegame lead on third-place UNLV. The top five seeds get first-round byes for the tournament. Saturday’s game is certainly one Lobo fans have had circled on their calendars for a while. Head coach Craig Neal stresses focus on the task at hand and not looking to games in the future. This time, however, the next game is the big one for the crown. “Our guys are smart. One step at a time, but you see it coming,” he said. “It’s going to be a unique experience for us. It’s going to be a unique experience for them, and I think it’s going to be really good for the conference.” This rematch seems reminiscent of last year’s series, where UNM fired only 25 percent from the field in a road loss to SDSU before winning the second game at home. UNM eventually won the 2012-13 conference’s regular-season and tournament championship. In the Feb. 22 contest at The Pit, the Aztecs shot 32 percent and made only two 3-pointers in a 58-44 Lobo victory. San Diego State also surrendered a 50 percent shooting clip. UNM then defeated Utah State, Nevada and Air Force while SDSU bested San Jose State, Fresno State and UNLV. The Aztecs capped Wednesday night’s action by pulling away from the Runnin’ Rebels in the last five minutes, hours after the Lobos throttled the Falcons on Senior Night. Guard Kendall Williams said he does not think the Lobos will fall short in the second meeting like SDSU did a year ago, given what is on the line. “It’s easy to avoid a letdown because it’s the last game of conference, at their place, for the championship,” he said. “We’re going into a hostile environment and that will keep us going the whole time. I don’t know how we’re going to play, but I know we’re going to play Lobo basketball.” San Diego State guard Xavier Thames, a potential Mountain West Player of the Year winner, said the Aztecs must match UNM’s intensity this time around. The Lobos contained SDSU’s top scoring threat to three field goals and seven points in the prior matchup. “I’m sure we’ll be ready,” Thames said in a statement. “We’ll have to get back in transition and do a good job of rebounding. We didn’t do a good job of getting back in the first game.” UNM forward Cameron Bairstow, meanwhile, seems poised to win the Player of the Year award. He has posted 16 20-point games this season, including 21 against Air Force, and continues to lead the league in scoring (20.3 points per game) and field goal percentage (56 percent).
Inside the
Sergio Jiménez / @SXfoto / Daily Lobo New Mexico forward Cameron Bairstow knocks the ball out of Air Force DeLovell Earls’ possession during the game against Air Force at the Pit on Wednesday. The number-21 Lobos will play 10th-ranked San Diego State for the Mountain West title this Saturday at 8 p.m. in San Diego, California.
UNM, Mexico plan exchanges Business office will assist students, entrepreneurs
by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
UNM will continue to reach out to its neighbor to the south this summer. The University is working with the City of Albuquerque to establish an educational office and a trade office in Mexico City to help prospective American and Mexican entrepreneurs collaborate and connect, said Mary Anne Saunders, UNM’s special assistant to the president for global initiatives. She said she expects the office to officially open in July or August. At the moment, the University is conducting interviews with potential managers of the planned educational office, Saunders said. She said the project will be important for UNM. “Our natural affinity is to Latin America and especially to Mexico,” she said. “We share a border. We share some history. We share DNA in some cases. We have always been very interested in expanding our profile.” UNM started planning the office in 2012 when President Robert Frank took over the University’s leadership, Saunders said. In October of that year, she, along with Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and other city officials, visited Mexico City to plan the projected offices, she said. Saunders said that through the potential educational office, UNM will recruit more Mexican exchange students. She said that at the moment, the population of Mexican exchange students on campus is insufficient. “We have very few students from Mexico
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here, and we really believe it’s a puzzle,” she said. “It’s interesting because they tend to go to the University of Texas at San Antonio or at the University of California in Los Angeles. They go east. They go west. They don’t go north. What’s up with this?” Because there is a burgeoning middle class in Mexico, there is an increasing number of students who want to study abroad, so it would be easy to recruit more students to UNM, she said. Also, through the office, UNM aims to double the number of outgoing exchange students to Mexico by August 2016, Saunders said. She said that although some places in Mexico are unsafe to visit, the country’s capital is an example of the contrary. “Certain areas are, of course, to be avoided,” she said. “We would never put students at risk. We would never encourage students to go (to these areas). We might encourage their students to go up (to Mexico City).” Saunders said the University has already initially allotted $75,000 for the educational office. UNM plans to collaborate with the City of Albuquerque for the project, Saunders said. She said the state government and the City of Santa Fe have also expressed interest in the project, although the University has yet to receive a formal commitment from the two entities. Randy Trask, manager of the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Trade Alliance, said the city will manage the separate trade office planned alongside UNM’s in Mexico City. He said the city’s preliminary budget allotment for the project has matched the University’s amount.
Trask said the city decided to work with UNM mainly to offset the costs of the project. He said the two offices will work independently. Because Mexico is one of the most integral trade partners of the city, building a trade office in the country would prove to be integral for Albuquerque, Trask said. “The Mexican market for New Mexico is our largest market at about $800 million in 2013,” he said. “The goal of the office in the trade site is to have a trade representative on the ground in Mexico City, which will help any New Mexico company that’s interested in to find potential partners in Mexico City and other parts of Mexico.” Trask said the planned trade office will help small businesses in Albuquerque find international export connections. He said the project would also help graduating UNM students interested in international business. “It gives us the opportunity to help build New Mexican companies to enter Mexico,” he said. “If there is a small business that thinks that there could be some demand for their product in Mexico, then it’s one thing just to know there’s some demand. It’s another thing to do market research there.” Trask said that within the next years, he also expects a large growth in the number of Mexican companies investing in Albuquerque. Saunders said she is excited about the two offices. “We know that we have a lot of work to do in terms of educating the people of Mexico that we exist,” she said. “And we are perfectly willing to undertake that task.”
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