why is New Mexico able to afford

[bulls96go]

to get IOWA's coach?

ESPN reported Wednesday night that New Mexico is reportedly working on a deal to hire Iowa's Steve Alford.

[TyBull]

their on campus fieldhouse is reffered to as "The Pit" and has approximately 15k seats that are always filled.....

Excellent atmoshpere for hoops.....

[Eric_Soncrant]

The Pit holds 16,016 and up until recently was sold out for every game.  UNM is also a basketball first school.  They don't fund football the same way most schools do.  Albuquerque loves it's basketball which is why the women's hoops team routinely has 10k at their games.

Basically they just have a different pecking order for their sports.

Eric

[bullwark]

Stevie was also about to get fired, he got out while the gettin was good.

[Matt]

my dad lives in Albuquerque.  the triple A marlins team plays there and out draws the MLB club on most nights.

there just isnt much else to spend the entertainment dollar on in that city.

just because they aren't nationally ranked doesn't mean their fan support isn't among to top in the country.

[E.T.]

...more basketabll fans NEED to support THEIR team !

[Reliabull]

Not so long ago, you did NOT want to travel to the Pit. Not only was the gym sold out, but the Lobos fans were/are extremely vociferous. It was a tough place to play and not many teams went in there and came out with a victory.

UNM basketball has, until recently, been very good and occasionally excellent. For many years, UNM, UTEP (with Don Haskins at the helm),BYU and Utah made the WAC a tough conference.

[Brad]

I remember when we went there to play, I believe it was for one of Seth's NIT trips...tough place to play indeed.

[Bull Matrix]

Brad,

I remember that game too. It was when Scott Johnson got injured once again to close out his USF career. Tough night all the way around for Seth and company.

[Eric_Soncrant]

The Pit is an awesome place for basketball.  SI did an article at one point in time ranking the arenas and The Pit usually comes up #2 behind Cameron.  They've measured the sound in there before and it was louder than a jet taking off.  It isn't good for your ears.

Lute Olsen hates playing there.  A big part of that is probably because he lost the last time he played there.  It's nothing fancy but the seats are at a very steep incline, putting more people closer to the action.  I'm sure the Lobo fans are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Steve Alford.  For them it will feel like they are finally being taken seriously (the whole state of New Mexico has an inferiority complex).

Anyway, that certainly helps recruit coaches.

Eric