UNM is 29-3 this year, the highest winning percentage for a Lobos team this late in the season in the history of the school.

The Governor and First Lady will be in good company. According to KRQE, there were “probably 6,000 fans” of UNM at the Thomas and Mack Center yesterday for the Lobos’ 75-69 victory over Air Force. Add at least two to that number.

The University of New Mexico men’s basketball team is having what is arguably its best year ever, and today is the final day of the regular season for the Lobos, when they play Texas Christian University at The Pit. And 1st Congressional District Representative, and Lobos fan, Martin Heinrich honored the 25-3 Lobos basketball team on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington D.C. today.

Heinrich congratulated the team on winning the Mountain West Conference regular season title, which they did with an 83-81 victory over Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

“In this truly remarkable season, the Lobos tied the school record for consecutive conference wins,” Heinrich said. “This is the second consecutive year that the Lobos won the conference championship.”

Last year, the Lobos split the regular season championship with BYU.

“The team recently cracked the nations Top 10 in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls, a feat not accomplished in more than a decade,” Heinrich said.

The Lobos are currently ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll and 10th in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll.

The House had been on a winning streak in the basketball game — nine games to be exact before the Senate pulled off an upset this year.

Rep. Gloria Vaughn, R-Alamogordo, however, told the Senate not to enjoy it too much. “I just wanted to say we love you, but we want the trophy back.”

“We raised $10,500 for cancer to alleviate that disease,” Jennings said, reminding everyone why the annual charity basketball game occurs.

Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, a member of the victorious team, asked for unanimous consent for “gloating” over the game. He mentioned that the Senate won despite their “age,” “wisdom” and, for some, “lack of coordination.”

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, called Griego and Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, “defensive wizards.”

In the House, the tone was different.

House Minority Leader Tom Taylor commended the House for effort, but said, “The fact remains that losing sucks.”

Members of both chambers made jokes about the coach of the Senate team. University of New Mexico head football coach Mike Locksley was the coach of the Senate, and multiple members made jokes that he now had the same amount of basketball coaching victories as football victories: One. Locksley’s UNM team was 1-11 this season.

Speaker of the House Ben Lujan, D-Nambe, reminded the House that the real point of the game was to raise money for charity.

“Collectively, with the sponsors and the people that went and paid, we raised a little more than $10,200 for the cancer center,” Lujan said.

Former Santa Fe Reporter staff writer Dave Maass popped into The Independent’s live blog today to tell us, “The House ALWAYS wins the basketball game.”

Maass also has the highlights, sort of, of last year’s game, where the House won 61-51, “mostly because of the deft ballwork of Reps. Jose Campos, Thomas Garcia and Bill O’Neill.”

The House will be wearing New Mexico State University jerseys while the Senate will wear University of New Mexico jerseys.

O’Brien claimed that the Tonight Show bought Mine That Bird (which was watching “restricted NFL Super Bowl footage”) for a skit that cost the network $4.8 million on his second-to-last show–but it was just a stunt. The reality, and video, is below.

From the Luxist blog at AOL:

the identity of the racehorse and the authenticity of the Super Bowl footage has since been disputed. As our sports-loving friends at FanHouse point out, that footage was actually a 1984 USFL game between the Tampa Bay Bandits and Houston Gamblers. A quick look at the horse on the Tonight Show and at Kentucky Derby winner reveals that while the two share some markings including a white smudge on the forehead, they are not the same animal. Mine That Bird is a bay with a darker mane and a smaller white marking than the horse that appeared on the Tonight Show (which was a chestnut). And while it is hard to tell from a television screen if the horse is wearing real fur, the thinness and drape seem to indicate that the horse is not adorned in real mink.

So don’t worry, New Mexico race horse enthusiasts, the race horse wasn’t bought by the Tonight Show.

The previous day, O’Brien claimed to have spent $1.8 million on an ultra rare and ultra pricey Bugatti Veyron which he dressed up as a mouse. While that skit was going on, the Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction” played in the background.

Friday night, on his final Tonight Show, O’Brien came clean and admitted to his audience, and the internet denizens, that it was all fake.

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, however, is no more. Much to the chagrin of the 630,000 fans on Facebook.

Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby as a 50-1 longshot, the longest odds for a winner in more than 60 years. At this time last year, Mine That Bird was racing in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Is this important? No, probably not even for race horsing fans. But as the legislative session begins to grind into motion and Congress continues to decide what to do with health care reform and other burning issues–we’re desperate for distraction.

Here’s the video of the skit:

Last night, actor (and possible future gubernatorial candidate) Val Kilmer took in the Pit when the University of New Mexico took on Oral Roberts. And Kilmer, joined by more than 13,000 fans, got to see the Lobos win 66-63.

“I love college basketball,” Kilmer, who lives in Pecos, told the Albuquerque Journal’s Mark Smith at halftime. “I’ve heard so much about the Pit, and I was really anxious to see a game here. I just hope we can get a streak going in the second half.”

Kilmer definitely got to see a good game, even if it didn’t seem like it in the first half. From the Journal article:

The Lobos tied their second biggest comeback in Pit history and their sixth largest overall by erasing a 15-point deficit.

Oh, and in case you have not seen it enough, you can see the end of the 1983 championship game and Jimmy V running around looking for a hug here.