Fresh kicks: Olen & Lobos show off new team
Lobo basketball is back!
Well, sort of.
For the summer.
New UNM men’s basketball coach Eric Olen has moved from his first phase of building a roster to his second one.
Phase two for Olen and his coaching staff is to teach, evaluate and figure out what identity this team will have come November.
Now that the roster is nearly complete, Olen and his coaching staff are teaching, evaluating and figuring out what the identity of the 2025-26 Lobos’ team will look like come November.
Olen’s players have been trickling into Albuquerque for the last two weeks.
As of Tuesday, 12 of the 14 announced commits have started summer workout sessions.
Still missing from the team are commits Tomislav Buljan, a 6-foot-9 forward from Zadar, Croatia and Timéo Pons, a 6-foot-7 guard from Nanterre, France.
“Their status is unknown at the time. It’s all out of our control at the moment,” Olen said. “We’re just sort of waiting through the student visa situation that every school in the country that has international players is working through.”
Pons is currently trying out for the French U19 FIBA basketball team, which is further delaying his arrival in Duke City.
UNM hopes to get both players as soon as possible.
For the last two weeks, the 12 new commits have undergone summer workout sessions that consist of weight training, conditioning, film study and skill-related instruction.
NCAA bylaws limit teams to eight hours per week of these activities.
No more than four hours per week can be devoted to skill-related instruction.
“Make as much progress as we can and build basic concepts in fundamental aspects of what we’re doing and get really comfortable in those,” Olen said.
Fundamentals were on display during Tuesday’s workout session, 30 minutes of which media members were allowed to attend, photograph and film.
The session began with athletic performance coach Charisse Williams leading the team through a ten-minute warm-up.
Thereafter, the UNM coaching staff put the team through a full-court offensive drill where players worked on ball handling, passing, shooting, cutting and footwork.
Antonio Chol, Jake Hall, Luke Haupt and big man JT Rock knocked down four consecutive catch-and-shoot threes off dribble penetration.
The coaching staff then switched gears to a two-man defensive drill.
Players simulated full-court on-ball defense, where the goal was for the defensive player to turn the offensive player with the basketball and force them to change direction or pick up their dribble.
Defensive players off the ball were expected to get into the proper position to help should the primary defender get beaten.
Assistant coach Mike Roberts is giving instructions to Antonio Chol about the importance of sprinting to the proper defensive position.
Coach Olen was also seen giving some teaching moments, one of which is shown below, where he instructs Deyton Albury and Chris Howell on how to space the floor and when to cut to the ball.
Learning Olen’s style of basketball is important, but equally as important is building a team bond with players who are getting to know each other for the first time.
“Being a new team, naturally, everybody has different experiences, everybody is coming from different levels. The biggest goal that I like to see and that I’m trying to move forward is just bringing everybody together,” Chris Howell said.
Howell and Milos Vicentic both played for Olen at UCSD last season and are expected to take on leadership roles.
Albury and North Dakota State transfer Tajavis Miller also have a combined five years of playing experience in Division I and figure to help other players adjust to the competition in the Mountain West Conference.
UNM will continue with summer workout sessions for the next eight weeks, leading up to the start of classes. In September, UNM will be allowed 30 countable athletically related activities, such as conditioning and skill-related instruction, before the beginning of the season in November 2025.
