Nevada Athletics and the Nevada Sports Network (NSN) will broadcast all three of this weekend’s Wolf Pack men’s and women’s basketball games in northern Nevada.
Games will begin airing Friday with a doubleheader. The Nevada women’s team will host Fresno Pacific on Friday at 1 p.m. at Lawlor Events Center. Nevada’s men play their Mountain West opener against the Air Force’s Falcons team on Friday at 7 p.m.
NSN also will air Sunday’s home game against the Falcons at 3 p.m.
According to a press release on this weekend’s games, COVID-19 protocols have limited NSN from “doing a full-blown production.” The broadcast will instead pull the digital feed produced by the Wolf Pack and put it on the local airwaves thanks to a partnership between UNR, its rights holder Learfield/IMG College and NSN to get the games on television for Wolf Pack fans.
Radio call of play-by-play man John Ramey and analyst Len Stevens will overlap the digital feed for the men’s games. For the women’s game, it will be play-by-play man Josh Suchon on the call.
NSN and the Wolf Pack are hopeful of expanding broadcast opportunities from the Nevada campus as they become available. The Mountain West Network announced its national television schedule Tuesday, with 15 of the Wolf Pack’s 20 conference games on the men’s side being picked up by CBS Sports Network and FS1.
“With reduced capacity measures in place on campus as part of the university’s COVID-19 mitigation efforts, we’re excited to work with NSN to provide our fans an over-the-air broadcast to enjoy Wolf Pack basketball games,” said Chad Hartley, Nevada’s associate athletics director for strategic communications.
The college basketball season began on Nov. 25. Since then, more than a dozen college basketball coaches have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, and colleges across the country have canceled games as a result of players testing positive for the virus—including Duke, USC, Florida A&M, George Mason, Towson, Baylor, the Connecticut women’s team, Utah, Wichita State, Tennessee and others.
Earlier this month, the Mountain West announced that a two-game series between Nevada women’s basketball and the Air Force women’s basketball team had been postponed.
The postponement came after an announcement of positive COVID-19 cases within the Air Force women’s basketball program.
In northern Nevada, NSN is available over the air on channel 21; Charter channel 787 in HD or 7 in SD; DirecTV and Dish Network on channel 21; or on AT&T U-verse channel 1021 in HD or 21 in SD.
The games will be available for viewing in the following counties: Washoe, Carson, Humboldt, Churchill, Pershing, Douglas, Lyon, Mineral, Lander and Eureka, and Lassen County in California. All three broadcasts will also be available digitally via the Mountain West Network.
