The fragility that Lobos coach Steve Alford warned was part of his University of New Mexico team surfaced in several ways Saturday night in a 72-67 Mountain West Conference loss to San Diego State.

Mainly, the fragility surfaced on the boards where UNM was outrebounded 45-34 overall = 24-11 in the second half.

"We have to rebound," said Alford. "We just couldn't get a rebound."

But the damage the Aztecs did to UNM inside was a sympton of another Lobo weakness -- size combined with athleticism.

Simply put, the Aztecs won this game because when they wanted to jump over Lobos and get the basketball, that's what they did. They were bigger, better, badder.

The Aztecs also took turns shooting over the smaller Lobos and burned UNM's defense for 51.9 percent shooting in the second half after shooting 33.3 percent in the first half.

"They are a very athletic team," said Alford. "They did a really good job on the backboard."

The Aztecs were down 33-25 at the half and outscored the Lobos by 13 points in the second half to race to an important road win for SDSU.

The Aztecs ought to take a tape of their second half, lock it in a vault somewhere, and pull it out when they need to be reminded of how poise, focus, defense, rebounding, taking good shots and hitting free throws can win games.

The Aztecs were superb in the second half and nailed this win by going 15-of-18 from the free throw line in the second half.

The Lobos ought to burn their tape of this game.

The Lobos were not sharp, not quick, not tenacious, not very good in front of their largest home crowd of the season (17,464).

It looked like most of the Lobos were willing to stand around and let senior J.R. Giddens win the game for them. He almost did, scoring 24 points and leading all rebounders with 11 in 34 minutes of play.

No other Lobo joined Giddens in double figures with senior guard Jamaal Smith and junior center Daniel Faris scoring nine points apiece. Roman Martinez kicked in seven points as did Dairese Gary.

The Lobos made Aztec Lorenzo Wade look All-NBA in the second half as he burned UNM for 19 points to finish with 23. Aztecs Kyle Spain, Matt Thomas and Kelvin Davis combined for 24 points in the second half.

The Aztecs took the lead for the first time in the game at the 14:33 mark of the second half when Wade threw down a dunk for a 39-37 SDSU lead. A 3-pointer by UNM's Smith tied the game at 45-all with 9:04 to go.

The Aztecs' Spain hit a jumper at 8:43 to push SDSU back up 47-45 and the Aztecs never trailed again. SDSU's biggest lead was 59-49 with 3:18 to play = a Wade jumper.

UNM cut it to 63-59 on Chad Toppert's only 3-pointer of the game with 50 seconds to go, but SDSU did what it needed to do on the boards and at the free throw line to get the win.

The loss drops UNM to 14-3 on the year and 1-1 in MWC play. San Diego State is 12-4 and 2-0 in league. In the MWC preseason poll, UNM and SDSU were picked to finished tied for fourth place in the regular season. The Lobos are on the MWC road Tuesday with a game at TCU.

The Lobos and the Aztecs both made 25 field goals and UNM had one more 3-pointer. The Aztecs outscored UNM at the line 16-of-21 to 10-of-21.

SDSU also had 23 second-chance points to 13 second-chance points for the Lobos. The Aztecs had 18 offensive rebounds but had ten in the first half. A big difference for SDSU was dominating the defensive boards in the second half and keeping UNM off the offensive boards.

The Aztecs had 16 defensive boards in the second half and UNM had five offensive rebounds in that half.

The Lobos did not get much help on the boards from their bench in this game. Monquel Pegues and Johnnie Harris had one rebound apiece in a combined 19 minutes of play.