Nevada Basketball: Are the Wolf Pack a true postseason threat?

Nevada Basketball is 26-3 on the season but shrouded in West Coast mystique. Are they serious contenders, or an average club preying on a weak schedule?

Saturday evening, I was force-fed bad Big East basketball like I was a toddler while I waited and waited (two overtimes worth, I should add) for Nevada/Utah State – the biggest game of the Mountain West Conference regular season, in hopes of finally figuring out this year’s Nevada squad. Instead, after two and a half hours of battling LTE coverage and watching basketball on my grainy phone screen while in the car, I was left even more puzzled than before with the Pack. For a team laced with fifth-year seniors, it’s very discouraging to witness such inconsistency on both ends of the court. And I don’t see a resolution.

Preseason, the Muss Bus was full-go: no stopping for anyone. They planned on dominating any and every opponent in their path. After a thrilling Sweet Sixteen run in 2018 on the backs of the Martin boys and Jordan Carolina, with them back plus another elite transfer haul coming in (and don’t forget Nevada’s first five-star recruit ever, Jordan Brown), Eric Musselman threatened Mark Few for West Coast dictatorship.

Nevada was this fun, elder program out in Reno that was loaded with talent: two identical twin stars, a double-double machine at guard, and a million former double-digit per-game scoring transfers, had a crazy-exciting coach, and a terrible schedule to steamroll. So what went wrong?

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Well, perhaps that schedule was a little too wretched. And running an offense with a collection of former go-to scorers can go awry. And maybe defense does matter. Crazily enough, at 26-3, Nevada’s season appears relatively disappointing. Nevada’s basketball program has never been a wire to wire fixture in the AP Poll (they will this season), and they most certainly have never had THIS much talent, or a former NBA head coach running their program.

All signs point to this being likely the greatest regular season campaign in the history of the program, which is an amazing achievement. However, as Tony Bennett knows well, the regular season means nothing in the postseason sphere. We know the Pack can pull off a Sweet Sixteen run, but will they again?

My answer: yes, it’s possible. In theory, any team can win two games in a row in the tournament. In that regard, Nevada absolutely is a threat. But I think they’ll lose early. Why? Well, here’s an old test I like to dust off and use when evaluating teams perceived as “second-weekend-worthy.” It’s a nifty little tool called the Have You Lost To the 176th Ranked Team by 27? test. Fascinating, right? Let’s run the Wolf Pack through this examination. Oh, they failed. Second-weekend teams (barring the occasional 12-15 seed) don’t get lambasted by 12-16 teams in mid-major conferences.

Last year, Nevada was hungry. The Martin twins and especially Jordan Caroline fought like they had something to prove. Musselman wasn’t being serenaded with praise by the College Basketball media yet. Instead, the Martin twins were NC State burnouts, Caroline was Cam Oliver’s sidekick, and Musselman was still viewed as an NBA failure after his stint with the Kings; not the transfer savant he is now. The urgency just isn’t there. The offense falls stagnant frequently and is often saved by works of individual brilliance, not ball movement, and team precision.

The defense is another issue. Yes, they allow only 66 points per game, and that’s 55th in the nation. But, with their schedule and collection of athleticism, this club should shut people down! They have a 6’7 dude at point guard! New Mexico and Colorado State should not be scoring 80 points, period.

For my liking, Nevada is far too inconsistent. In the tournament, though, inconsistency is dangerous–both ways. Caleb and Cody can catch fire at any moment and end some poor team’s season like that. Or, they could combine to go 3-13 from three and there goes Nevada’s greatest season ever down the drain, like that.

Next. Ranking the 32 conference tournaments. dark

To answer the article’s question, no, I do not think Nevada is a threat to advance any further than the Sweet Sixteen. As soon as they run into a Kentucky, a North Carolina, a Tennessee, or any of the 1-2 seeds, they’ll be cooked–assuming they can even get that far. They are not a postseason threat–unless we’re talking about the Mountain West tournament I guess.

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