BYU women's basketball: Cougars can't catch hot-shooting New Mexico

The BYU women's basketball team could never quite recover from an early deficit as they dropped their first Mountain West Conference home game to New Mexico 60-57 on Wednesday night.

The hot-shooting Lobos went 7 of 13 in the first half from beyond the 3-point line putting them up six at halftime — and the Cougars couldn't recover.

"They were on fire tonight. They hit every open shot in the first half. In the second half we guarded them better. Then we only went 4-19 (from three point range), and we're better than that," said BYU coach Jeff Judkins.

BYU guard Mindy Bonham played all 40 minutes of the contest and scored a game-high 18 points.

BYU fell behind by as many as 15 points, 34-19, in the first half but just kept fighting.

"I was proud of my team to try to come back. We were in a deep hole and fought back three times, but we couldn't ever quite take the lead. I think if we'd have done that we'd have won," said Judkins, whose team battled back to within 58-57 with almost two minutes remaining in the game, but just couldn't get over that hump.

Another thing that affected the Cougars throughout the first half was Coriann Wood's illness. She was down flat with the stomach flu and hooked up to an IV all through the first 20 minutes of action. At halftime she decided she was feeling a little better and could go.

Judkins noted how proud he was of Wood for coming in to play, but entreated the team that they had to play with what they had, and Wood's absence in the first half, despite the lack of her usual energy boost, couldn't be blamed for the loss. Wood did finish the game with four points and two rebounds in a second half 11-minute effort.

Judkins was also unhappy with the foul differential, pointing out that the Lobos shot 17-26 free throws in the game, while BYU was only 9-14 from the stripe.

"We put them on the line too many times," said Judkins, who also noted that the Cougars' energetic press was not as effective against the Lobos.. He believes one reason behind that is that teams are scouting the team and coming in prepared for the press, noting that now his team just has to do a better job.

The Cougars have now lost five straight to the Lobos and their second conference game, giving themselves a 13-5, 4-2 record and dropping out of first place in the MWC.