As Paul Weir enters season two of his tenure as head coach of the Lobos basketball program, I ask him for some big picture assessments of what he accomplished in his first season, what he regrets and what should fans expect from him and his team in the coming 2018-19 season.

New UNM Lobo point guard Keith McGee talks about his growing up, what got him to UNM and he's remarkably open about some insecurities he's had as a player, saying he had to overcome confidence issues both at the junior college he played at last season and earlier this semester at UNM when he started playing with the Lobos.

In Episode 17, I had a long talk with the man I consider the New Mexico coach that never was. Dick Hunsaker is a Clovis High graduate who has played for or coached with the likes of Don Haskins, Neil McCarthy and Rick Majerus while also having connections with Steve Alford and Craig Neal (heck, he was even once a part of a summer camp with Bob King and Norm Ellenberger). Hunsaker talks about all those connections and spending a week observing this year's UNM Lobos and head coach Paul Weir.

In Episode 16, I have a conversation with Lobo sophomores Vladimir Pinchuk and Makuach Maluach. The two have a unique bond as they were not only the only two freshmen on last year's team but were both living in the United States for the first time. They talk about their transition to a new country, college basketball and even interview each other about guilty pleasures like Pinchuk's love of watching hundreds of episodes of Family Feud.

(Reposting from 3/24/18) In Episode 9, I veer off course from the usual Lobo hoops podcasts and talk to the author of "All the Dreams We've Dreamed" and the central figure of that book, former NMSU Aggie point guard Shawn Harrington, who in 2014 was shot while taking his daughter to school in the west side of Chicago. Bradburd, an NMSU professor and former Aggies basketball coach who recruited Shawn to Las Cruces in the 1990's, talks about why he wrote the book and his relationship with his former player. Shawn walks us through that tragic morning and talks about what he hopes people take from the book. I am reposting this on Oct. 3, 2018 because it was originally posted under an Albuquerque Journal account and this will add it to all the proper channels for my podcast.

Episode 15 is a conversation with Indiana Pacers scout and former Cleveland State coach Kevin Mackey, the architect of the Run and Stun press that UNM Lobos head coach Paul Weir is trying to implement with his program. Mackey flew to Albuquerque a year ago to help the Lobos coaching staff with the system. He's back a year later. What did he see with the Lobos using the press in Year 1, what started his use of the Press in the 1980s and what is Paul Weir's level of commitment to it moving forward?

Episode 14 is a conversation with UNM Lobos basketball assistant Jerome Robinson about his path to coaching. From a Jamaican family and growing up in Toronto, not only how did he get into hoops, but how did he become one of Canada's best? He was roommates with Steve Nash on the Canadian National team, guarded a young Argentine player named Manu Ginobili, was a standout defender every where he's played and then dabbled with the sports agent world before getting into coaching. He's in year two now with the Lobos, but what game last year brought a tear to his eye?

In Episode 13, I sit down with longtime Journal prep sports editor James Yodice. We talk about the high school football season ahead, what it means to be the prep editor at the state's largest paper (for my money, as tough a gig as there is in journalism), the time his computer caught fire, some of his favorite places to cover a game in the state and how much he enjoys having a colleague who sings the Alamogordo High School fight song during the hectic Friday nights.

In Episode 12, UNM classes start Monday, Aug. 20, which means it's the last first day of school for Dane Kuiper and Anthony Mathis. The two seniors on the Lobos basketball team sat down with me last week to talk about the journeys at UNM so far, the season ahead and the legacy they hope to cement in their final year at UNM. They also talk about when they first played each other in the 6th grade when Anthony was living in Oregon and Dane in Alaska, who talks more trash, is Dane really a good fisherman just because he has tattoos of fish and what are their memories of the run the team went on to finish last season?

In Episode 11, I sit down with Lobos hoops coach Paul Weir for some stories from the recruiting trail, and more. What does the intense July recruiting period really even mean anymore for a program like UNM? Is it even the best use of time and resources for a program like UNM (or others in the Mountain West) that seem to be made up of as many or more DI and junior college transfers than high school kids anymore? I talk with Paul about that and much more in this episode.