Nevada is a Mountain West Conference team having trouble shooting the basketball accurately. Sound familiar? Losers of seven straight, the Wolf Pack demise is because the braintrust just hasn't done an adequate job of recruiting the past few years. There aren't even any Luke Babbitt-lites or Armon Johnson's on the court in Reno.
Yet the guys from The Biggest Little City in the World lost by just two points to San Diego State a few days ago and they beat UNLV in Vegas by two back in early January. Go figure. They also pummeled Air Force by 18.
6-foot-9, 235 A.J. West is the leading scorer but at a meager 12.5 points per game. His 10.1 boards an outing gives him a double-double average. However, two notes need to be made here: a sizeable portion of his scoring is coming off his offensive rebounding prowess (an amazing 120 versus 81 defensive) and because he has so little competition from his teammates -- the next-in-line is 3.6 a contest coming from a guard. West also has 54 shotblocks to his credit but that shouldn't be much of a factor in Saturday's matchup.
Generally, there is nobody else on Coach David Carter's roster who consistently produces. 6-foot-6 D.J. Fenner, 6-foot-4 Marqueze Coleman, 6-foot-3, 205 Tyron Criswell and 6-foot-3 Michael Perez are all capable of 15 points each time out but they rarely do so as a duo or threesome. Plus, Criswell is the only one in that group shooting above 40% (he's at 44%).
As a team the Wolf Pack are accurate on just 26% of its three-pointers attempted and the group is underwater in steals and turnovers.
So really, who knows what to expect? Which Nevada will show up? Look for Ivo Basor to play a lot in this one in order to try and counter West.
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