Lenny Ignelzi/AP

J.R. Giddens gets San Diego State's Lorenzo Wade in the air. Giddens led the Lobos to an important 73-63 road win Wednesday night, scoring 22 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. UNM is tied with the Aztecs for third place in the Mountain West Conference after the win.

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This is how good J.R. Giddens has been for the Lobos lately:

"J.R. is playing NBA lottery-pick level right now," said junior center Daniel Fairs. "He makes the game so much easier for everyone else when he plays like that."

The Lobos' leader stuffed the stat sheet Wednesday night in a 73-63 Mountain West Conference win at San Diego State.

Giddens hit 7 of 8 shot attempts, hauled down 11 rebounds, had four assists, two steals, four blocked shots and scored 22 points.

Said Lobos coach Steve Alford: "He is just doing everything for us. The only thing that he has probably been inconsistent with is his 3-ball; tonight he made his 3-ball."

It probably comes as a bit of a surprise that Giddens had not made more than two 3-pointers in a game until Wednesday night in the SDSU Cox Arena, where he shot 3 for 3 from long range.

"When J.R. plays like that, you just give him the ball and hope that he does what he is supposed to do," said freshman point guard Dairese Gary.

What Giddens is supposed to do is make things happen. With a shot. With a drive. With a pass. With a monster block.

Giddens did all those things against San Diego State as UNM raised its season mark to 19-6 and climbed into a tie with SDSU for third place in the MWC at 6-4.

The Lobos' win was payback for the Aztecs clawing out a 72-67 win in The Pit on Jan. 12.

"We kind of owed them one," Gary said.

Said Toppert: "We came into this game remembering what they did to us in our home."

Of course, the payback trail has not ended for the Lobos. TCU steps into The Pit on Saturday. The Lobos led TCU by 18 points in the second half before losing on a Ryan Wall 3-pointer with 1.5 ticks to play.

"It was fun to get some payback on (SDSU) and we have another game like that with TCU," Faris said. "We really want them bad. We were up by 18.

"There are a few teams we want to get back at."

Alford said before the SDSU game that he wanted to get off to a good start against the Aztecs.

The Lobos did that twice.

They opened the game with a 19-7 run and opened the second half outscoring the Aztecs 12-2. That 31-9 difference made a huge difference.

"I thought that was the key, not giving up the blowout like we had in our last two road games," Alford said, referring to UNM falling into early and huge holes at UNLV and at BYU.

"I think our guys built some confidence. If we'd gotten down big in the first six, seven minutes, I could see them start thinking of the last two road games."

The Lobos never trailed against the Aztecs. SDSU cut UNM's first-half lead to 27-25 with 5:03 to play, but UNM went into the break leading 37-33.

UNM's 12-2 run to open the second half made it 49-35 with 13:52 to play. The Aztecs didn't cut the gap into single digits until there were 42 seconds left to play - 70-61.

Too late.

"We are playing with kind of an urgency now, and if we keep that up, we'll play harder and harder and keep getting better and better," Gary said.

Said UNM senior Jamaal Smith: "This is a tremendous win, coming into their house and beating a great team. This was a huge step to take.

"I think it all boiled down to toughness. They'd make a run, and we'd answer with a run of our own."

The Lobos got 47 points from the guard trio of Giddens, Gary and Smith.

"Our guards won the game for us," Faris said.