The Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball team opened non-conference play Tuesday night with a 77-63 victory over the visiting Sacramento State Hornets that included a stoppage of play due to the infamous Lawlor Events Center bats buzzing a little too closely to a few of the players. The incident garnered some attention on social media and news media.
The win was a solid effort highlighting the positional depth that’s been added to much of last year’s squad, which earned a somewhat unexpected NCAA tournament berth but seemed to simply run out of gas a bit down the stretch.
The Pack (1-0, 0-0 MW) broke free of the pesky Hornets, who held a 15-12 lead midway through the first half, on the strength of a fully healthy Hunter McIntosh. The 6’-3” guard, who suffered a serious injury before last season and rehabbed ahead of schedule to play in the team’s final six games, showed some of what had been advertised when he transferred from Elon.
With the team scuttling a bit to find their rhythm and point-guard Kenan Blackshear on the bench with two early fouls, all McIntosh did was single-handedly flip the script scoring every Wolf Pack point and adding a steal during a 9-3 Nevada run to give the Pack a 21-18 lead with 6:47 left in the half.
Head coach Steve Alford commented, “Yeah, I thought he was key. First half Kenan got in foul trouble and Hunter had to play a lot of minutes. I thought he gave us a huge spark and has been shooting the ball well all of October.”
McIntosh’s offense seemed to open up some solid looks for last season’s leading scorer Jarod Lucas who then took over, scoring 12 of his first-half leading 14 points to close out the first stanza and push Nevada’s advantage to 39-30 at the break.
Notably absent from the first-half scoresheet was Blackshear with zero points, but more on him later.
The late surge of the first half seemed to settle the Wolf Pack down. They came out in the second half looking more organized on offense and comfortable with their assignments on defense. A 61-44 lead after a pair of Nick Davidson free throws with 9:42 remaining looked like this one would be a laugher and some extended minutes for some of the newcomers.
The Hornets, however, had other ideas. In the span of 2:07 Sacramento State showed they had not quit playing and with a 12-0 run that drew them within six points of the Pack.
Enter Blackshear, who stepped up to assume the point guard role last season when McIntosh was injured—essentially Steve Alford had no better option. The 6’-6” senior took the team on his back as he had done so many times the prior year, assuming all the ball-handling duties and settling things back down, while taking advantage of some mismatches to stem the Hornets’ uprising.
Nevada outscored Sacramento State 16-7 the rest of the way behind Blackshear’s eight points, along with Davidson and Lucas chipping in four points each to secure the win in front of a paid crowd of 6,875.
Next up: Nevada travels to Seattle to take on the Washington Huskies of the Pac-12 before returning home on Wednesday, Nov. 15 to host Pacific at 7 p.m.
Notes:
- Tre’ Coleman opened his bid for Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year by absolutely shutting down Sac State’s biggest offensive threat, Brandon Betson, who went 1-10 from the field.
- Coleman led the team in steals with three and tied for most assists with four.
- Jazz Gardner, the highest recruit to sign with NV out of HS, showed why he arrives so highly touted. The true freshman hauled down a team-leading eight rebounds and added eight points, including a three-pointer, in under 15 minutes of playing time.
- Nevada controlled the paint, outscoring the Hornets 32-20 while also playing clean basketball. The Pack out-chanced Sac State from the free throw line 27-8.
- Nevada converted 21-27 from the line with Coleman, Lucas, Davidson, Blackshear, and freshman point guard Tyler Rolison going 19-for-19.
- The six-foot Rolison flashed with two points, three assists, and a steal in 12 minutes.
- The Pack won key metrics assists (17-16), turnovers (7-13), and steals (8-2).
