New Mexico’s Steve Alford finds success wherever he goes

If you are looking for a little something special in your college basketball viewing Saturday, zero in on the New Mexico bench at USC’s Galen Center.

The 6-2 Lobos will be there to play the Trojans. So will New Mexico’s Steve Alford.

Coaches come and coaches go. Alford, now 47, does, too. But where he does go, success follows.

After taking Southwest Missouri State to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament as a young coach, Alford moved on to Iowa and won two Big Ten Conference tournaments in his eight-year stay. Now, in his fifth season with New Mexico — a place where the basketball zeal might be best summed up by the name of the team’s home court, The Pit — he has won two Mountain West Conference titles after posting a 24-9 record his first season.

With four starters back this season, it appears to be more of the same for the Lobos.

“I like this team,” Alford said Friday. “I hope we are headed in the right direction. A lot of our early-season mistakes were because we weren’t settled at point guard.”

New Mexico seems to be now. The leader is a freshman from Australia, Hugh Greenwood, who is averaging 3.0 assists and 6.6 points.

“We’re pleased,” Alford said. “He’s gone against some pretty quick point guards.”

Saturday will be another, USC’s 5-foot-7 Maurice Jones.

“He is key,” Alford said. “He makes them go on offense.”

Alford said that 6-9 Drew Gordon, a UCLA transfer, is doing well and gives the Lobos a “double-double player” (double figures in rebounding and scoring), and that injured Phillip McDonald is “just about ready to go again.”

Tony Snell, 6-7 forward, leads the Lobos in scoring with 13.5 points a game.

For Alford, being back on the USC campus brings a rush of memories. The 1984 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, of which he was a part, lived on the USC campus during the two weeks it took to win the gold medal under coach Bob Knight.

“I don’t think I’ve been back to the campus since then,” Alford said.

That Olympic gold medal shares the top spot on Alford’s memory podium with the NCAA title he and his Indiana Hoosiers won in 1987 under Knight. At Indiana, Alford, a high-scoring guard, was a three-time All-Big Ten player and a first-team All-American one season.

“It’s a hard call to pick between those two,” said Alford, who said he went back to Bloomington last week for the Stetson-Indiana game and a 25-year reunion of members from that NCAA title team.

“Lot of great memories back there,” said Alford, who said he still uses much of what he learned from his father, Sam, his coach in his prep playing days, and from the legendary Knight.

Just in case there are doubts about the caliber of basketball in New Mexico’s Mountain West Conference, the Lobos have already beaten two Pac-12 Conference teams, Arizona State and Washington State. The Trojans have lost to Nevada Las Vegas and San Diego State of the Mountain West.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com