Should New Mexico be part of the Pac 12? (Part 8 of 11)

University of New Mexico

The Academics
Location: Alburquerque, NM
Type of School: Public
Total Student Population: 25,754
Undergrads: 20,047
Demographics: 4% Asian; 3% Black; 36% Hispanic; 49% White; 7% Native American 1% International
Sex Ratio: 43.9% male; 56.1% female
%age of Natives: 83% are New Mexicans
Ranking: 3rd Tier among Full Research Universities
AVG SAT of admitted kids: 1070
Endowment: $385,700,000

CURRENT CONFERENCES: Mountain West (all sports)
Football stadium capacity: 40,094
Men's Basketball capacity: 18,018
Women's Basketball capacity: 18,018
Most notable money sport: Tie between men's and women's basketball

The
University of New Mexico is our next school on the list, which has a campus with many of its buildings reflecting Pueblo architecture. The school offers a full range of post grad programs in law, engineering, business and education, with all of the schools ranked in the Top 100 or better in numerous graduate rankings.

Athletically, the school is best known for its basketball teams. The men's basketball team has consistently posted winning records and has enjoyed numerous NIT and NCAA berths 14 of the last 20 years, though they never have made it past the 2nd round. The women's basketball team has consistently been among the top teams in the Mountain West, and have went to six straight NCAA berths and won five MWC tourney championships.

Why New Mexico should be in the Pac 12
Like most of the MWC schools in consideration here, New Mexico has the facilities to play in Pac 12 Competition right away. The Lobos will also be competitive nationally in a number of olympic sports along with basketball. Academically, the school will improve with bigger conference membership. The football stadium is a little small, but expansion is not as hard to do when you have Big Six membership.

Why New Mexico should not
Like many of the schools already mentioned, this school just doesn't have much academic clout. The undergrads here will be the bottom feeders of the Pac 12 conference, which will not earn much support from the elitist institutions already mentioned. Sure football sucks much of the time here, but the team still can improve when they improve conferences. Still academics alone make this pretty undesirable. I'd say they barely qualify for their standards or are just short in that area

Final Verdict
Another school where academic concerns hurt their chances from making them a serious contender, but I wouldn't count them out completely.

New Mexico Alumni

Shirley Hufstedler, Class of 1945
First US Secretary of Education from 1979-1981. She was also was a lawyer in California and served as the Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles, and served as a Federal Appeals Court Judge before being Secretary of Education. She is 84 years old today, and is still a practicing attorney in the state of Cal-uh-foh-nyah

Carol Vigil, Class of 1977
First Native American to be elected as a state court judge in the US. Was a State District Judge from 1998-2005 in New Mexico

Michael Cooper, Class of 1978
Basketball Player at New Mexico and All-WAC 1st Team in 1978, most famous as an 8x All Defensive Team NBA guard for the LA Lakers and 5x NBA Champion alongside the Showtime era with Riley, Magic, James, and Kareem; he is nearly as famous in today's era as the head coach for the WNBA's LA Sparks where he won two championships and coached two WNBA MVP's in Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker. He now is the head women's basketball coach for the USC Lady Trojans, a/k/a Women of Troy.

Brian Urlacher, Class of 2000
Football All American at LB/S; Pro Bowl LB for the Chicago Bears

Danny Granger, Class of 2005
Mountain West POY in 2004-2005 in basketball; now a forward for the Indiana Pacers and one time All Star