Nevada Basketball: What Has Gone So Right?
The Wolf Pack are tied for second with one more regular season game this weekend, how will it end?
Contact/Follow @HardwoodTalk & @MWCwire
Nevada is poised for a top 3 finish on Saturday,
We are nearing the end of February and come Saturday you get an extra day this year to watch basketball, sit and reflect. The end of the regular season in the Mountain West will end with the Utah State Aggies visiting the Lobos in Albuquerque at 8:00 PM MST. But right before that is the game everyone might be tuning in to.
That game tips off at 6:00 PM MST, and features the first place San Diego State Aztecs as they visit the Nevada Wolf Pack in Reno in the marquee match up of the night.
This game will be well watched for two reasons, one the possibility of the senior night upset of a top-25 ranked opponent and two the conference’s Player of the Year race may be decided in this game. The game features two really good teams, the Aztecs who have sole possession of first place in the conference and have already won the regular season title. And the Wolf Pack who were a little hard to predict coming into the season with so many unknowns and new personnel. But Nevada has proven some folks wrong and in doing so has lived up to that preseason top-5 finish that they were given in October, maybe even exceeding it.
In case you didn’t click the link up above or haven’t been following my coverage of the Wolf Pack all season, I wrote that article. I chose Nevada as one of my two teams who may not live up to expectations this season back in October. For no reason other than, I wasn’t completely sold. I mean the coaching staff change, inexperienced bigs and the little division I experience on the roster had me worried, but alas I was wrong.
The Wolf Pack have pulled it all together and excelled, enough for a current second place tie with the preseason favorite in Utah State. The Aggies didn’t end up winning the conference because of…well you know who. And side from a slight surprise season from UNLV sitting at third place (picked 7th) and a disappointing second half performance by New Mexico currently tied for sixth (picked 3rd), things have shaped up as most predicted.
For Nevada who was predicted to finish fourth and has surpassed that with an amazing batch of performances in the month of February which resulted in a current six game winning streak, the transition between coaching staffs has been relatively smooth. But what has gone so right for Steve Alford in his first season back in the Mountain West? Well let’s take a look.
A slight slow start,
Something noticeable early on was the apparent talent on the Wolf Pack’s roster. But the lack of chemistry in a group that as a whole, had only been playing together since the arrival of all nine newcomers presumably in the summer.
The team only brought back five players this season that had been on last year’s NCAA tournament roster and only senior guards Jazz Johnson (28.6 MPG in 18-19) and Nisre Zouzoua (6.0 MPG in 18-19) saw playing time. The other three being Lindsey Drew (out entire 18-19 season with injury), Jalen Harris (sitting out 18-19 due to transfer rules) and K.J. Hymes (red shirted 18-19 season as a freshman) sat out for different reasons.
By all means this was a new team that was going to play only three returning letter winners and eight newcomers. The talent was there early on as the Wolf Pack split their first six games 3-3, winning games they may have been expected to in Loyola Marymount, UT-Arlington and Fordham. While losing tougher ones to the likes of Utah, USC and Davidson.
Chemistry takes time to build but for the Wolf Pack maybe the right amount of time had come around the start of conference play where their 12-5 record (0.706 CPCT.) shines bright over a 7-5 non-conference record (0.583 PCT.) where they were still figuring things out. Some of that’s on the players but that doesn’t happen easily without a good coaching staff developing them.
In season development of freshmen bigs,
Another point of concern as the season began was the team’s lack of experienced big men. The last Wolf Pack team under Musselman relied on incoming division-one transfers to fill out the frontcourt every year. And as the season tipped off in November there were four big men to distribute minutes to but no clear starters out of the gate.
Alford inherited and was able to keep highly touted freshman K.J. Hymes in Reno and brought in Zane Meeks out of the Brewster Academy by way for Prairie Village, KS to complement Hymes in a future Wolf Pack frontcourt. Both players had high major offers in high school and Hymes was even predicted as the freshman of the year in the preseason, but neither had logged a single minute of game time at the college level and were unknowns going into the first game.
Frontcourt depth was added later on in the form of junior college freshman Robby Robinson (San Diego City College) and Johncarlos Reyes (Boston College-ACC). With these additions the coaching staff was able to have at least two actual bigs on the court at all times and didn’t have to play small ball like a lot of teams have been forced to do around the conference, but still both players came with unknowns. Robinson though productive at the junior college level (15.3 PPG & 10.0 RPG in 28 GMS) could have gone either way in year one at the division-one level, we see it all the time, players sometimes need time to get acclimated to greater size, athleticism and speed of the game. While Reyes was transferring in from a team in a bigger and more competitive conference, but one where he only saw 6.1 MPG on a team that finished 11th in the ACC.
Well even though no one is making the all-conference first team from the Nevada frontcourt at the end of this season. All four players have had an impact on the court at one point or another. K.J. Hymes has displayed an elite bounce and length when left open in the post, and like Zane Meeks can stretch the defense with the ability to knock down the occasional long range shot. And even though the freshmen have gotten a fair share of the playing time (almost half), it is Robinson and Reyes who have started 57 of the total 58 games played together.
Of course, Jalen Harris
The Wolf Packs current standing and overall success should really be attributed to their performances in the month of February where they went 6-1 and won by double-digits in seven games (14.3 PPG).
During that time multiple players have stepped up their level of play, but Harris has been tremendous and went on to average 28.5 PPG in seven games played in February and has scored thirty points or more on six separate occasions this season.
On top of all of that he’s only failed to score in double figures twice this entire season, once against USC where he managed only nine points and against Utah in Nevada’s home opener. That same game his future with the team looked to be in jeopardy as a first half foot injury kept him out of action the rest of that game and the following one. But lucky for the fans and coaching staff alike, it wasn’t serious and the rest of Harris’ season is in the record books.
Aside from lifting his team up to a possible second place finish, Harris has propelled himself into the conference’s Player of the Year race. And after consistent a performance all-year long paired with the best February possibly in the entire country let alone the Mountain West. He finds himself in a tight and exciting player of the year and possibly newcomer of the year race that will likely be decided come Saturday. Regardless of the accolades he receives at the end of the year, Jalen Harris stayed the course after the coach that recruited him to Reno moved on and certainly will go down as one of the best Wolf Pack scorers of the past decade.
A great supportive cast,
Aside from the star power Jalen Harris has brought to the court this season, there are notable jumps in production and confidence among other members of the Wolf Pack compared to last season.
I began the season calling the Wolf Pack’s attack the big three, which featured Jalen Harris, Jazz Johnson and Lindsey Drew. But as the season went on it was more of a four horsemen scenario, with the addition of Nisre Zouzoua as a credible scoring threat.
Johnson was destined for a bigger role and higher scoring average this season. After excepting a role as a major support player behind the Martin twins and Jordan Caroline averaging 11.0 PPG in thirty-three games played but only one start. That earned the junior the 2019 Mountain West Sixth man of the year award, but a roster depleted by graduation and transferring players presented an opportunity for the clutch guard. And even though he’s shared the spotlight with Jalen Harris this season he’s seen a bump in production this year averaging 16.0 PPG, 3.3 RPG and 2.0 APG in 27 starts so far.
This development is apparent in senior Lindsey Drew as well who decided to stay after the coaching change and has seen his numbers increase from his last campaign with the Wolf Pack back in 2017-18. Those numbers are up to 11.1 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 4.2 APG and 1.4 SPG this year compared to 8.1 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 4.3 APG and 1.0 SPG two years ago in as many starts (29). That season ending injury hasn’t taken a toll on his play, and at the end of February it looks like Drew’s gotten some of his bounce back.
Back to Zouzoua, the former Bryant Bulldog came to Nevada under Eric Musselman and came with a reputation as a scorer. In his last season at Bryant he averaged 20.3 PPG in 31 games with 26 starts. In an era where transfers can be the life blood or death of a program it’s very easy to get too excited about a players potential based on their numbers.
A further click on the Bulldogs stats from that 2016-2017 season would show those stats logged on a 12-20 Bryant team that finished 5th in the NEC at 9-9. It would also tell you that their head coach was fired the next season after leading the Bulldogs to a 3-28 season. And a last click would expose that Bryant team as a group looking to outscore their opponent with little defense in mind. That team ranked 224th in turnovers forced, 315th in blocks and 292nd in opponents scoring average at 77.4 PPG.
On an NCAA tournament caliber team Zouzoua’s weaknesses were exposed as he saw action in 21 games and averaged 6.0 MPG last year, averaging 1.3 PPG and just 2.4 field goal attempts a game (compared to 7.8 this year). Point being Zouzoua has developed into a great three-point shooter this year and dangerous when left open on either corner on the court. He rounds out Nevada’s top four scorers and compliments the emergence of Jalen Harris as a top player in the conference.
Looking back on this team in October, I wasn’t sold on the Wolf Pack and I stand by that prediction. Even though I can admit I didn’t really take the track record of success and player development that Steve Alford had in the Mountain West into account.
Although he failed to ever establish that same dominance at UCLA, he is now back in the conference where he remade a name for himself and with some familiar faces around him could make a home in the Mountain West again. I mean after all, the allure of a blue blood program coming to call him away could happen once again. But maybe Steve Alford’s got that out of his system and could make the Wolf Pack a regular tournament attendee.
With every point of weakness so far addressed over the course of the season Nevada has at a win at home on Saturday against the number five ranked team in the nation, a seven-game win streak and a top-3 finish in conference play for fourth straight year.
.jpg?w=600)
