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Paul Weir and UNM have agreed to go their separate ways at the end of the season. (Roberto E. Rosales / Albuquerque Journal)
Paul Weir is stepping down as coach of the New Mexico Lobos at the end of the season.
The 41-year-old male basketball coach, in the fourth year of a six-year contract with UNM, has reached an agreement with the university on a buyout, though the terms of the buyout are not immediately available. His contract called for a buyout of $ 700,000 over the next two seasons, although the deal made is said to be less than that. The Journal learned that UNM Athletics intends to pay the full buyout with funds raised privately.
Weir, who was making $ 775,000 this season, informed his players of the move on Friday night.
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“Now is the perfect time to transition to Lobo Basketball,” Weir said in a press release sent moments after the Journal published his initial story. “I can’t imagine a more optimal time than today for all of us to have a fresh start. I am extremely grateful to Eddie (Nuñez, athletic director), President (Garnett) Stokes and the staff of UNM who kindly gave me the opportunity to resume my career in such a courteous manner. Their leadership will surely make this next chapter of Lobo Basketball the best yet. “
Weir has a 58-60 record at UNM and a five-year career record of 86-66 which includes one-season training at New Mexico State University. With the team moved out of state for games this season due to public health restrictions in New Mexico, the Lobos are 6-13 overall and 2-13 at Mountain. West – only in last place in the 11th team league.
The Lobos will have a game Wednesday at Colorado State and then the MWC tournament March 10-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Nuñez will address the media on Saturday morning. A national search for his replacement will begin immediately.
“Paul and I agree that a change in leadership in our men’s basketball program is in our best interest at this time,” Nuñez said in a statement. “While this has certainly been a tough year for Coach Weir, his staff and our student-athletes, after evaluating the entire program, now is the right time for a fresh start. I want to thank Paul and his family for their commitment and service to New Mexico and we wish them the best for the future.
Weir resumed a declining schedule after Craig Neal’s four seasons as head coach – and was ultimately unable to change that. The UNM remains in its longest playoff drought in more than half a century without an NCAA tournament or an invitation from the NIT since 2013-14.
After being picked to finish ninth in his debut season, Weir led the Lobos to a third place at Mountain West, and the team earned a seven-game winning streak late in the season in the MWC tournament championship game against San Diego State with a place in the NCAA tournament on the line.
In 2019, Weir’s second season at UNM, the Lobos defeated 6th Nevada at the Pit, 85-58, for the best win of Weir’s tenure. But the team stumbled from there, losing 10 of the next 13 and finished 14-18 overall, 7-11 in the league and as a No.7 seed in the conference tournament, losing to Utah State. in the quarterfinals.
Weir, who still owes a NMSU redemption when he left the Aggies in 2017 after one season, has been swept away by his old school in four games in his first two seasons.
In his third season, with a top-tier transfer roster, the Lobos got off to a 13-2 start with a sweep from the Aggies and a big win in Brooklyn against the Big Ten’s Wisconsin Badgers.
But in late December 2019, two starters – playmaker JJ Caldwell and center Carlton Bragg – were suspended after being charged with crimes for which, ultimately, neither were charged.
Caldwell never played again. Bragg returned for two games in January 2020, before being fired later after an arrest by DWI. Later in the season, after a road loss to Nevada and former head coach Steve Alford, the team members attended a party in Albuquerque hosted by JaQuan Lyle, senior from Lobo, when their charter flight came back to town. During the party, two people were shot dead, including a UNM softball player.
Season four was the most inexperienced roster in Weir’s tenure with 12 new players and four new staff – all facing a season of uncertainty where games, or even practices for that matter, weren’t allowed in. state due to a strict public health order.
Even before the season began, the best high school rookie in recent memory for the Lobos – Santa Fe High graduate and Consensus Top 100 rookie JB White, who graduated a year earlier to join his state. origin, the Lobos – was shot at a party. outside of Santa Fe less than a week before he moved to Albuquerque to join the team.
Within two weeks, the Lobos’ potential top scorer Zane Martin was transferred, citing uncertainty over whether there would be a season in New Mexico. During the season, two Lobo guards – head goaltender Keith McGee and first-year goalie Nolan Dorsey – announced that they would not be finishing the season.
Through it all, in what has turned out to be a historically bad season for the Lobos, Weir was open about the mental toll of the season and living out of hotels took his team and how much it worried him more than anything. victory or loss.
“It was something I had to be at peace with a long time ago when this season started and we were kind of faced with what we were up against,” Weir said on February 3. “… If I wanted to practice (when the state of health forbade it), if I wanted to do certain things that I could probably have gotten away with, we could have done those things, but I couldn’t just not doing it. I felt a responsibility to these young men. I felt a responsibility to UNM, a responsibility to the high school kids who want to play sports. To the other people here at UNM.…
“I hold my head up high and lay my head on the pillow, as if whatever question you’re about to ask, I accepted it and knew it was going to happen. And if I was worried about it, I wouldn’t have acted that way along the way.
Check back tonight and in the Saturday Journal for more on this story.
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