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University of New Mexico men's basketball coach Steve Alford is correct.

His Lobos are fragile.

But have the TCU Horned Frogs noticed the specific areas of weakness? Will they pound away at the Lobos inside?

And are the Lobos merely fragile in The Pit, where they think they can lean on the home-crowd energy and ride it to victory?

The Lobos take a three-game road winning streak into Frog Country tonight and can do something no other Lobos team has done in 10 seasons by making it four straight on the road.

But if you go by UNM's visit last year to Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, this is a place where fragile Lobos shatter like cracked glass rather than turn into steel.

The fragile UNM team of 2006-07 saw its season turn from promising to pathetic, and the catalyst for that turnaround was probably the Lobos' 64-52 crash at TCU.

Last year, the Lobos came to Fort Worth with an 11-4 mark. They went 4-13 the rest of the season - a season that ended with coach Ritchie McKay getting the boot.

The main difference for this UNM team is Alford replacing McKay on the hot seat.

Alford's Lobos play with more purpose, more focus, more heart, more defense.

"They are listening," to Alford, said TCU coach Neil Dougherty.

There are also similarities to the Lobos of last year and the Lobos of Alford's first season.

UNM leans heavily, probably too heavily, on perimeter shooting and 3-point bombs that often aren't as reliable on the road rims.

The Lobos do not have a dominant or intimidating inside game.

The Lobos' position defense is solid and their team defense is above average, but their "size" defense is a problem. The Lobos are not big, not muscular, not determined enough.

That size thing was exposed by San Diego State on Saturday in The Pit in a 72-67 Aztecs win. SDSU hammered the Lobos on the boards by 14 in the second half.

TCU knows how to hammer folks on the boards, too. The Frogs outrebounded Wyoming 46-32 Saturday in Fort Worth in pounding the Cowboys 83-56.

The Frogs got on a run (22-4) early in that game to put away the Cowboys. The Frogs threw a 14-0 run on McKay's Lobos to open the second half last year and expose UNM's fragility.

The Frogs tied with UNM last year for last place in the Mountain West Conference. The Frogs surely want to bump up that finish a bit.

They need to defend their home court in order to make such a climb. The Lobos obviously are beatable, and maybe TCU is getting UNM during a time when the Lobos are doubting themselves a bit.

The Frogs are talented athletically, but not real big. They start two 6-foot-8 forwards.

The best Frog is 6-4 Henry Salter, a wing type who can attack the basket or burn you with the 3-pointer.

It's doubtful that a loss tonight would send the Lobos on another downward spiral like last year's loss to TCU.

More to the point, this is a TCU team that likely will drop a few games at home.

The Lobos - fragile or not - need to take advantage of that.