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UNM LOBOS BASKETBALL

Lobo hoops notebook: UNM to host Arizona State in exhibition; Petraitis cleared for 5 on 5

UNM will play three preseason games at the Pit, while two transfer forwards return to full five-on-five workouts.

UNM Lobo Rytis Petraitis at a Lobo practice
New UNM Lobo forward Rytis Petraitis, who played at Air Force and Cal before transferring to UNM in April, shoots at a team practice on June 3.
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The Lobos will be playing not one, but two Big 12 teams this season.

Just not in the regular season.

Arizona State on Monday released its non-conference schedule, making public the contract it had signed with UNM to play Oct. 25 in the Pit for an exhibition game.

The Lobos previously announced an Oct. 11 exhibition at Big 12 Oklahoma State in Stillwater, a game that will be a home-and-home exhibition deal.

The Sun Devils, however, will be playing in the Pit as part of a one-off contract in which the Lobos are paying ASU $50,000 for the exhibition game, per a contract reviewed by the Journal, though the game has not been publicly confirmed by UNM.

The Sun Devils are coached for the first time this season by Randy Bennett, the longtime Saint Mary’s coach.

UNM will also play Washington State in the Pit on Oct. 18, per a contract with the Cougars as part of a home-and-home exhibition series that started this past season.

The Journal has also learned that UNM’s non-Division I opponent this season will be NAIA Northern New Mexico College. None of the three in-state Division II schools — New Mexico Highlands, Eastern New Mexico and Western New Mexico — had availability on the dates UNM needed to play them, leaving a late December home game in the Pit to the team from Española.

The ASU game completes UNM’s three-game exhibition schedule. UNM has already announced its 18-game Mountain West schedule, and the Northern New Mexico game is the 13th of a 14-game nonconference schedule.

The game yet to be announced likely will be a road game.

Slowly but surely

Two of the biggest X factors for the coming Lobos hoops season come in the form of two transfer forwards — Rytis Petraitis and Imran Suljanovic — coming off serious injuries at their previous schools.

And while both have been practicing all summer, it was with some caution. The season doesn’t actually start until November, after all.

However, over the past two weeks, Suljanovic (the week of Aug. 21) and Petraitis (just Monday) have started their first full five-on-five workouts with the team.

Petraitis, a fifth-year senior who played at Air Force for the first two seasons of his college career and at Cal the past two, received a medical redshirt for this past season after suffering a hip injury. Since arriving at UNM over the summer, he’s been a near-full participant, but not until Monday did he start full five-on-five drills for the first time.

“If we can get a really good version of Rytis at any point during the season, but certainly by conference play — I think his strengths fit what we’re going to do,” UNM coach Eric Olen said in early August in . “... Really excited about what a healthy version of of Rytis Petraitis could look like in our system.”

In the case of Suljanovic, the 6-foot-8 second year player who missed all of last season after a knee injury last October while a true freshman at St. John’s, has been a full participant over the past two weeks without restrictions.

“I think he’s similar to Rytis coming off significant injury,” Olen said in that same . “So, we’ll see about a timeline for his progression, but I think if and when Imran gets to full strength, I think he’s got a chance to be really impactful.”

Official visits

The Lobos this past weekend welcomed to the Pit on official recruiting visits 6-foot-10 4-star rated center Nik Welch Jr., the son of former Air Force Falcon who was part of the great Air Force teams that actually had two of the Falcons three all-time wins in the Pit a couple decades ago, and 6-7 3-star forward Landon Veal.

Both are high school seniors and part of the 2027 recruiting class — Welch Jr. is from Rolling Hill Prep in San Pedro, California, and Veal from Houston (Texas) Christian.

G-League ϼ House call

Former Lobo point guard Jaelen House, now back for the coming season with the NBA G-League San Diego Clippers, was one of 12 players selected to play on the G-League ϼ international showcase team for the Sept. 22-27 2026 FIBA International Cup in Beijing.

This past weekend, House, a starter, and the G-League ϼ team beat the Shanghai Sharks in a pair of exhibition games in China. Final stats were not released by the league, though both games were won by the team from the ϼ States, one by 40 points (103-73).

Geoff Grammer is the Sports Editor of the Journal, a podcaster, columnist and covers UNM Lobos basketball, among other things. Reach him at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) .