Lobos Punch Ticket to Indy with NIT Quarterfinal Win Over St. Joe’s

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The New Mexico men’s basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the 2026 NIT with an 84-69 quarterfinal victory over Saint Joseph’s on Tuesday night at The Pit – Powered by Nusenda. The Lobos (26-10) reached the semifinals for the first time since 1990 while the Hawks saw their season end with a 24-12 record.

Tomislav Buljan led UNM with a career-high 27 points to go with 11 rebounds, his 17th double-double of the season. Jake Hall added 24 points while Luke Haupt scored 10 points and had five assists for New Mexico.

HOW IT HAPPENED
The Lobos used an early 7-0 run to take a 9-3 lead over the opening three minutes and held a 15-11 lead with 15:00 left. UNM led 21-17 at the midway point of the half and pushed the margin to 28-22 with 7:20 left. The Hawks used a 14-2 run to take a 39-32 lead with 2:15 left in the half, but UNM answered with five straight to cut the margin to 39-37 at halftime. Buljan had 16 points in the first half to lead UNM.

In the second half, UNM used an early 10-0 run to retake the lead, 47-41, after three-and-a-half minutes of play. The lead grew to 58-49 with 12:00 to play with a 7-0 UNM run and increased to 63-51 at the midway point of the half. The run continued to 15-2, with the Lobos taking a 66-51 lead with 9:00 to play. St. Joe’s cut the lead to 72-64 with 4:00 left, five straight from the Lobos made it a 77-64 game with 1:40 to go. The Hawks wouldn’t get within single digits again as UNM closed out the 15-point win.

LOBO NOTES
• The Lobos advanced to their third NIT semifinal (1964, 1990)
• New Mexico ended their home season with a 17-3 record
• UNM is the first team since San Diego State in 2016 to advance to the NIT semifinals with three wins by at least 15 points
• Hall became the all-time leading freshman scorer in Mountain West history with 585 points, breaking the previous record of 564 by UNLV’s Anthony Bennett in 2012-13
• Hall had his 11th 20-point game of the season
• Buljan had his third 25&10 game of the season, T-2nd most by a freshman this season (Trailing Duke’s Cameron Boozer with six, tied with BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Washington’s Hannes Steinbach)

QUOTABLE
“St. Joe’s is a really, tough competitive team. They have been on the road for like a week-and-a-half and had two really good road wins to get here. Congrats to them for playing great basketball down the stretch. I want to thank the fans. We have easily had the best fans in this tournament. They really gave us a push when we needed it in the second half. I also want to thank our administration and all the people who have done so much work to push back the setup for the rodeo to allow us to play here today. We would be in Philadelphia right now if they hadn’t done that. That’s what makes this place special, with the support and willingness to do anything to help us be successful. We couldn’t be more appreciative of this opportunity to play at home. Not everywhere in country would do all that to get us one more home game and not have to fly across the country. It truly was a community effort.” – Eric Olen

UP NEXT
The Lobos will play Tulsa in the NIT semifinals, held April 2 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Golden Hurricane advanced with an 83-79 win over Wichita State in Tuesday’s other quarterfinal. The semifinal will be televised on ESPN and will tip either at 5 p.m. MT or 7:30 p.m. MT. The NIT championship game will be April 5 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.