ALBUQUERQUE -- It's time for the Lobos to get tougher.

That was the message University of New Mexico head men's basketball coach Steve Alford told his team following a pair of Mountain West Conference losses last week.

A third-straight loss would put UNM in a hard-to-recover-from situation.

The Lobos made sure that didn't happen with an 85-52 win over Colorado State on Wednesday night in The Pit before an announced crowd of 14,089.

The win improved the Lobos to 16-4 overall and 2-2 in Mountain West play. They next face TCU in The Pit at 4 p.m. Saturday. Colorado State fell to 13-6 overall and 2-2 in league play.

More importantly for UNM, the win keeps the Lobos within striking distance of the league's top two teams, San Diego State (4-0 in MWC play) and UNLV (3-1). The two teams the Lobos lost to last week.

"I was very pleased with our guys' efforts," said Steve Alford, UNM head coach. "Some of the hardest things in athletics is that when you get knocked down, how are you going to react and our guys really reacted better than I thought we would."

That must mean the team is responding to Alford's "no-nonsense" approach to the next two weeks. Over this time, Alford plans to focus on making his team one of, if not the, toughest team in the conference.

That showed early in the second half with UNM leading CSU 47-34. Alford was seen throwing his clipboard to the ground during timeout, trying to fire up the Lobos.

"Clipboards don't like coach Alford too much," said senior forward Drew Gordon, who scored a game-high 13 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.

"I told them that this is going to be 13 days like they have never seen," Alford said. "It's on and they know it. I'm going to step on them as long as I got to step on them because if they can come out of the next 13 days, then they are going to have best six weeks they have ever had in college basketball. But we need the next 13 days."

It was a complete team effort by UNM. Of the Lobos' 85 points, 42 came from the bench.

Of the team's 35 field goals, 23 came by an assist. CSU committed 20 turnovers, two of which were charging calls Gordon forced. He only had one going into Wednesday's game.

"I don't like to take charges, they hurt," Gordon said. "I think it keeps them from driving to the basket. They think twice about it instead of just getting whatever they want I the paint. Once you take a few charges, it's always in the back of their mind -- it makes them a little more hesitant."

But that's the kind of aggressive toughness Alford is calling for his team to have. Or in this case, gain.

"You don't play one game and then all of a sudden develop a toughness to you," Alford said. "We have done a lot of good things defensively, done a lot of good things in games. We're having a great year, but we challenged our guys, because we want to have a special year."

Three other Lobos scored in double figures.

Phillip McDonald and Tony Snell each added 12 points. Jamal Fenton had a respectable game with 10 points, six assists and no turnovers, at least he thought so.

"He was in my face all game," Fenton said. "He's been preaching about how the next 13 days are going to be the hardest time of our lives, but its going to be the best time of our lives too, because he is going to push us to become better."