GAME NOTES: It will be a long road for the New Mexico Lobos if they intend on playing in the title game of the Mountain West Conference Tournament for the fourth straight year, and the quest begins on Wednesday afternoon against Air Force at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

The eighth-seeded Lobos are a long shot to make it to the championship round on Sunday after losing quite a bit of talent from the teams that had captured three straight crowns. New Mexico, which defeated San Diego State for the title last year, 64-58, for the second time in three years,

New Mexico, which has a total of four tournament titles in the MWC, has a record of 16-11 in the event all-time. The squad recently dealt with a painful seven-game slide, the longest in decades, but managed to put an end to it with a narrow 52-49 victory against Wyoming in overtime last weekend at WisePies Arena.

The ninth-seeded Falcons played well for the first month of the campaign, but then registered back-to-back victories only once since the middle of December. The program lost two straight and three of the last four to close out the regular season.

Air Force has had very little success in this event over the years, winning just two of 17 outings, at one point dropping nine in a row. Not only have the Falcons never taken home the trophy, they've never even been in the final game. The Academy is 2-2 in the opening round of the event, but 0-13 in the quarterfinals.

The team split the two regular-season meetings, each winning on their own floor. New Mexico has won all three previous tournament meetings versus the Falcons.

The survivor of this meeting will be back in action on Thursday versus top- seeded Boise State in the quarterfinals.

The Falcons had some issues with injury and discipline this season and continue to play without Kamryn Williams (9.5 ppg) who was their best rebounder with 6.0 rpg. Max Yon led the program in scoring with 13.1 ppg as he made good on 47.6 percent of his attempts from the floor, but he too missed several games and was relegated to coming off the bench later in the campaign. The one constant for Air Force was Marek Olesinski who started all 29 games, connecting on 50.2 percent from the field for his 10.0 ppg, adding 4.9 rpg as the team lost out to opponents by just 0.7 rpg this season.

There were a lot of missing parts for the Lobos this season, after having some heavy hitters along the front line the last several years. Right out of the chute the program lost Cullen Neal (17.0 ppg) to a season-ending injury just three games in, so it was up to the defense to carry the torch after that. The squad was able to limit foes to only 59.9 ppg, but at the same time the offense struggled to put up even 62.0 ppg. Deshawn Delaney led the way with 11.7 ppg, converting 49.5 percent from the floor, and Hugh Greenwood another 11.5 ppg, to go along with 98 assists. Unfortunately, Greenwood has been hit- or-miss from the floor (.345).

This is by no means the New Mexico team of old, but as long as Greenwood can find his shot out on the perimeter and the Lobos don't come away with too many empty possessions, they should be able to take down the Falcons.