ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Lobo men’s basketball team is now 14-1 in the Mountain West Conference after taking down the Utah State Aggies at The Pit.

The Lobos played to a packed house who knew how important Sunday’s game was. With a win, the Lobos would secure the tiebreaker over Utah State.

The two players who seemed to have understood that from opening tipoff were Tru Washington and Donovan Dent. Washington passed it over to Dent for the three and he swished it. Dent had a really good scoring game but he needed someone else to show up with him..

That player was Washington.

When Washington wasn’t scoring, it was Dent getting buckets. When it wasn’t Dent scoring and digging a hole for Utah State, it was Washington putting the nail in the coffin.

With nine seconds left, it was a one point game with 9 seconds left. Then, Washington took a deep wing three and drilled it to secure an 82-79 Lobos win.

The Lobos are now 14-1 two games ahead of the Aggies in conference play.

Dent had yet another solid game, scoring at 23 points. It was his second-straight game with at least 20 points and his 11th on this season. The leading scorer was Tru Washington who set a career high with 25 point, fueled by four three-pointers.

Washington had a hand in everything on the offensive end, scoring timely buckets. He had 19 points in the second-half and dominated on defense with three steals and plenty of energy against the Aggies’ back court.

“I felt like, first half, the guards were getting to it. I mean, the guards are killing us, so I said he was killing me. Second half, I came out and I was just like, ‘I’m not going for it no more.’ I had to play deep. If we want to win and it starts with me, then my team feeds off me. And where we get the dub,” Washington said.

With the win, the Lobos are the first Mountain West team to clinch a bye for the tournament. Still, head coach Richard Pitino says there’s still plenty to play for and his guys aren’t fully satisfied yet.

“I thought it was a phenomenal game. We shot 63% against that zone in the second half, which was phenomenal. We got some huge stops and rebounds when we needed to. They got loose on some threes at the end for sure and made our free throws, which is big, right? I mean, we always like to talk about free throws. We made 27 of them, which is never a given. So I think their taste in success, I think they like the taste of it and they want to keep it going,” Pitino said.

Next up for the Lobo men’s basketball team are two games on the road – Feb. 19 at Boise State and Feb. 25 at San Diego State – and two games at home, hosting Air Force on March 1 and UNLV on March 7.

The Lobos still remain unranked. However, they received 117 votes in the AP Top 25 men’s basketball poll, just 20 votes shy of slotting in at No. 25.