Uriah Tenette is set to open New Mexico’s season Monday night as the Lobos’ starting point guard, a shift that turns the preseason All-Mountain West selection into the team’s first answer in the 2026-27 season. The opener against Utah Tech is scheduled for 7 p.m. at The Pit, and it will be the first public look at how Tenette handles a full game in charge of the offense.
That matters because Tenette did not drift into this role. After New Mexico’s loss to Tulsa in the NIT semifinals in Indianapolis, he said he was coming back to run the offense, and he has since been voted to the preseason All-Mountain West team. He also enters the season wearing No. 1, a small change that fits the larger one: New Mexico is asking him to set the pace from the start instead of easing into it.
The numbers support the promotion. Tenette averaged 10.6 points, 2.9 assists and 1.4 steals as a freshman in 2025-26, then raised that production to 14.3 points, 3.7 assists and 1.0 steals across three preseason games. Eric Olen said Tenette played really well down the stretch last year, had a couple of impressive practices late last week and has a comfort level that is pretty high. Olen added that he expects Tenette to keep making good decisions with the ball, which is why the Lobos are trusting him to initiate almost everything from the top.
But there is still a question in the fit. Tenette says his job is to be more vocal and more aggressive from Day 1, while Olen has said he may need to be more aggressive at times. That is not a contradiction so much as a narrow test: New Mexico wants Tenette to lead, but it also wants him to hunt his own offense when the game slows down. Olen pointed to Oct. 25, when Tenette got aggressive late in the Arizona State game and scored the basketball, as the model for what that can look like when he is not just organizing the flow but forcing defenses to react.
The opener comes with one more wrinkle. Graduate transfer forward Rytis Petraitis is unlikely to play Monday because of an ankle sprain, which leaves New Mexico a little thinner as it tries to settle its rotation around Tenette and, likely, around maximizing the skill set of shooting guard Jake Hall. That makes Monday less about a routine season debut than a first examination of how much the Lobos can ask of their new floor leader. If Tenette really is the one setting the table, the tone and the pace, then Monday night should show whether New Mexico’s offense is ready to run through him from the first possession on.
