UNM women's basketball players said it has been a remarkably quiet week at practice because head coach Don Flanagan has been rendered virtually mute thanks to a sore throat and assistant coach Yvonne Sanchez was out on the recruiting trail. "It was kind of hard to understand coach (Flanagan), but coach (Dave) Shoemate and coach Shane (Flanagan) translated a little bit for us," Briody said.

Flanagan already has visited a doctor and is on the mend.

He might feel a little better after checking out the ticket sales for Saturday's game. UNM had sold 10,200 tickets as of late Wednesday afternoon. I couldn't snag a Thursday update, but the total already is a season high and surpasses the Texas total. You can check out a story I wrote in today's Tribune for more details about the moves UNM's marketing department is making to help boost attendance.

This also was supposed to be a painful week of early-morning free-throw shooting for the Lobos after a rough start from the line. But Briody said the Lobos' surge of strong free-throw shooting against Georgia Southern meant the players only had to show up for practice early and shoot 50 free throws instead of heading to the practice facility for extra shooting before sunrise. Let's just say Reggie Theus, who promised to make the Aggie men shoot at 3 a.m. after their road loss to UNM earlier this week, isn't the only coach with a mean streak when it comes to players missing from the charity stripe. "We got lucky," Briody said. "It could have been so much worse."

Check out Friday's Tribune for more women's basketball coverage.

Posted by ilimon at 06:31 PM | Permalink