Lobos run wild as Cougs get smoked 92-64 in Albuquerque exhibition

Well, that was ugly. The Cougs got run out of The Pit 92-64 in an exhibition against New Mexico, and there's no way to sugarcoat it. This wasn't a case of a few bad bounces or a cold shooting night, the Lobos put a 16-0 run on Washington State in the first half and led by 42 points in the second. For a program that just got its best FBS offensive output of the season from Owen Eshelman's first start gave Wazzu its best FBS offense yet on the gridiron, this was a stark reminder that the basketball rebuild is going to take more than a new jersey.

The specifics are hard to ignore. New Mexico's Jake Hall, the Mountain West Freshman of the Year, looked like a man playing against high schoolers, 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting. The Cougs' leading scorer was Isaiah Houston with 14, and Ronnie Harrison chipped in 12, but no one else cracked double figures. The Lobos' 16-point surge in four minutes turned a 3-2 game into a laugher. Washington State never recovered, trailing by 25 at the half. It's an exhibition, sure, but the margin and the way it happened, getting dominated on both ends in a building that's always loud, raises real questions about how this team competes in a conference that just added Boise State. That Boise State comes to Pullman for the first time since 2017 next week for football, but the basketball Broncos will be a different kind of test.

Here's the take you can text a friend: this team is going to lose some games by a lot before it figures out how to win one. The defense got carved up, the offense had no answer for pressure, and the Lobos shot 8-of-10 from deep in the first half alone. The only bright spot was that Harrison, the East Texas A&M transfer, looked comfortable running the show, 12 points, four boards, four assists. But one guard can't fix a 42-point hole. The real question is whether David Riley can tighten the screws before conference play, or if this is a sign that the Cougs are in for a long winter. Watch the next exhibition closely. If the same defensive lapses show up, it's not an adjustment problem, it's a roster problem.