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UNM Women's Basketball: Guard Beggin shines for Lobos

By Iliana Limón
Saturday, November 25, 2006

On a basketball court, Amy Beggin hides her emotions as if she's Jane Bond.

Beggin, a freshman point guard for the University of New Mexico, tucks away her awe and excitement when she's on the court.

She masks her youthful exuberance with an air of maturity. Secretly, she's exploding inside with emotions.

"Playing here is even better than I thought it would be," Beggin said. "The crowds are unbelievable and the energy out there is just awesome. It's one thing to see a game with the crowd going crazy. It's a whole other thing to be down on the floor with the crowd cheering for you."

Beggin gave UNM fans a lot to cheer about Friday night.

She was one of the brighter notes on an otherwise sloppy night for the Lobos, who collected a 64-43 win over Georgia Southern in The Pit in the first round of UNM's Thanksgiving tournament.

The Lobos improved to 3-2 overall and the visiting Eagles dipped to 1-5.

The Lobos face Siena (1-3) in the championship game of the tournament at about 8 p.m. The Saints defeated Western Illinois 82-65 in early tournament game Friday night.

UNM coach Don Flanagan lamented his team's miscues against Georgia Southern.

He noted the Lobos' poor free-throw shooting, weak rebounding and double-digit turnovers as significant problems.

UNM was 21-of-34 from the free-throw line (61.8 percent).

"That's inexcusable," Flanagan said.

The Lobos also were out-rebounded 18-13 on the offensive boards and gave up 19 turnovers.

The team compensated by playing strong defense, holding a Georgia Southern team that nearly upset No. 8 Georgia earlier this week to 25 percent shooting from the field and forcing 25 turnovers.

"If we can play defense like that all year, I'll be happy with the defense," Flanagan said.

Junior forward Dionne Marsh led the Lobos with 22 points and added 17 rebounds.

Senior guard Julie Briody chipped in 14 points. Junior guard Brandi Kimble offset a rough shooting night with a game-high 12 rebounds.

Amid the critique, Flanagan almost missed Beggin's strong performance.

He scanned the stat sheet after the game and did a double-take when he noticed Beggin's line.

"Amy had a very good game," he said.

Beggin added a new dimension to her game, scoring 14 points against Georgia Southern. She also had three steals, one rebound, one assist and one turnover in 24 minutes of play.

It was her first double-figure scoring night as a Lobo.

"I don't look to score, but I have to hit the shots when I'm open so other teams can't get away with double-teaming the posts or the other guards," Beggin said. "I wasn't shooting as well as I would have liked before, so it felt really good to hit more shots."

Flanagan has been quick to praise Beggin's play this season, lauding her ability to run UNM's offense after learning it a few months ago. She also handles the defensive pressure of the opposing team's top guards and applies full-court pressure on opposing teams.

She did struggle to deal with then-No. 13 Arizona State's blistering full-court press and during the Lobos' final possession against Texas when UNM was saddled with a shot-clock violation while leading the Longhorns by three points. Texas got the ball back and missed a last-second 3-pointer that could have forced overtime.

Flanagan said Beggin quickly learned from the mistakes she made against the Sun Devils' press and was not to blame for UNM's trouble getting a shot off against Texas during a critical possession.

"Our offense broke down and everyone ran away from her instead of going to the ball the way they should have in that situation," Flanagan said. "At least she had the courage to hang on to the ball and put up a shot at the last possible second."

Beggin said she sees plenty of room for improvement in her game.

She wants to continue serving as an offensive threat when needed, find more ways to deliver the ball to her teammates and keep hounding opposing point guards as they bring the ball up the court.

"I love being a spark for the team off the bench," she said. "I want to push myself to keep doing anything I can to help this team keep winning."