At Western New Mexico, hitting the road for away games is very much a literal thing.
The Mustangs don’t fly charter. They don’t fly commercial. And they don’t even take chartered buses to non-conference games.
Instead, they pile into buses seating 26-28 people — while one of their coaches takes the wheel, with a commercial driver’s license in his pocket.
“We’re all old school,” Western New Mexico coach Matt Enriquez said. “We all have our CDLs and we have a small fleet of buses we own.”
Fortunately for the Mustangs, reaching McKale Center in time for Tuesday night’s exhibition game with Arizona wasn’t too bad.
It took one of Enriquez’ assistant coaches just three hours to drive everyone over from Silver City, New Mexico, on Monday morning, allowing the Mustangs plenty of time to practice and overnight before Tuesday’s game.
Arizona will pay them just $10,000 for showing up — roughly 12 percent of what UA typically pays a regular-season opponent — so it’s a bargain of sorts for both sides.
While the Mustangs have averaged only 6.7 wins a year over the past decade, the logistics, at least, suggest they are an ideal exhibition opponent for the Wildcats.
Western New Mexico is actually the closest Division II team to Arizona, which can’t play Division I teams for public exhibitions under NCAA rules. But while the Wildcats and Mustangs played six regular-season games between 1940-62, they have met only once since the NCAA also began forbidding exhibitions against professionals a decade ago.
It just so happens that was only the second game a Sean Miller-coached Arizona team ever played: On Nov. 10, 2009, the Wildcats clobbered the Mustangs 96-55 at McKale Center.
Nic Wise had 21 points and eight rebounds to lead Arizona while freshman Derrick Williams, not yet a star, came off the bench to add 12 points.
Enriquez, who was inducted into the WNMU Hall of Fame for his career as a Mustangs player, was an assistant for that game.
“I think the biggest thing I remember was the fans, the atmosphere,” Enriquez said.
“That’s a unique place, the McKale Center. I had been out of playing for just a few years and that was one of the first times I missed playing.
“We had more Arizona guys on our roster then than we do now and the experience was huge for them. It was a fun experience.”
This season, the Mustangs have two players from Phoenix, forward CJ Vanbeekum of Paradise Valley High School and guard Amarion Cash from Mountain Pointe High School, plus Phoenix College transfer Davis Wade, a guard originally from Mississippi.
WNMU’s roster also includes six international players, including three Mexican natives who played for El Paso high schools before enrolling at the Silver City college. But Enriquez said he regularly recruits from Tucson high schools and Pima College, working with limited scholarships to offer.
“Pima has a good junior college team and every year we look there,” Enriquez said. “In Tucson and Phoenix, there’s so much talent that gets overlooked.”
So while Arizona can use Tuesday’s game to start testing its new-look lineup, the Mustangs will get a chance to showcase themselves on their recruiting turf.
It won’t count in the standings, but it’s a win-win.
“We try to play Arizona and ASU every year if we can,” Enriquez said.
“Every year I call. And we were sitting there in June or July and they called us. I was surprised and said, ‘Definitely we’ll play, whatever date you want, and we’ll make it work.'"
Rim shots
- The UA would not say Monday if forward Ira Lee will play Tuesday. UA coach Sean Miller said earlier this month Lee would face “some disciplinary action” after his August arrest for super extreme DUI. Lee’s case in Pima County Justice Court was continued from Oct. 19 to Dec. 6.
- Texas forward Drew Timme opted not to take a tentatively planned recruiting visit to Arizona. Timme has visited Texas A&M, Gonzaga and Alabama over the last two months, but told Stockrisers he will take no more visits before his Nov. 14 announcement.
- Former UA wing Rawle Alkins did not return a message seeking comment on an ESPN report that agent Christian Dawkins emailed his business partner a plan to pay Alkins and his family a total of $50,000 last season.
