Now that the Wolf Pack is halfway through the WAC season this is a great time to check on the development of what is unquestionably a young, essentially brand new Nevada team. Over the last several weeks I’ve often considered addressing this topic, but there was just not enough data for me to come up with a cohesive theme. But now we’re seeing some exciting trends and the team is developing a distinct personality.

Dario Hunt, Deontè Burton and Olek Czyz have begun to gel, and they may now be the most potent triumvirate in the WAC. The bench features an interchangeable cast of role players, like talented freshman Jordan Burris and improving reserve point guard Derrell Conner, that gives Coach Carter a variety of options depending on the opponent and which reserve has the hot hand.  This has lead to 4 straight wins and put Nevada in a second place tie in the WAC standings. The Pack is poised to throw a wrench into the plans of the rest of the conference.

The future is bright for Nevada, and nearly every fan can now see that.

To better understand the factors contributing to the team’s improvement I’ve constructed tables to compare the OOC games from early this season with the Pack’s performance in the first 7 WAC games.

Offensively, David Carter's second Wolf Pack club is improving (Photo by Mark Rauh of SilverandBlueSports.com)

The Fine Print: Much of this was compiled by hand and there is a small “fudge factor” as I was forced to use calculations for both StatSheet.com and Kenpom.com.  They do some things a bit differently on the two sites so there are some minor discrepancies, but they are not enough to undermine the overall findings.  Mostly, what this means is that the national “Rank” in the categories may be off by a few places, but it is still helpful for identifying how the Pack compares to the rest of the 345 D1 basketball teams.  Also the “Rank” for “WAC Play” is a projection of where the Pack would rank nationally if their “WAC Play” stats had been maintained for the entire season to date.  To see where Nevada actually ranks for all games played to date, just go to kenpom.com.

Nevada’s offensive efficiency has shown dramatic improvement.  The jump from 218^th nationally in the first 12 games to the equivalent of 56^th during the WAC season is almost all one needs to see in order to understand why the Pack stopped losing close games.  The contributing factors to this improvement can be seen in the “Four Factors” section.

The Pack’s Effective FG Percent has been outstanding and ranks with the better offenses in the nation over the last 8 games.  Most of that has come from the improvement in 2pt FG%, but there’s also been solid improvement in both 3pt FG% and Free Throw Attempts as compared to FG Attempts. The only important factors that haven’t shown improvement are Offensive Rebound Percent and Free Throw Percent, but these failings are insignificant compared to the improvement in the other categories.

Certainly the biggest contributor to this improvement is the addition of Czyz a dozen games ago.  While some suggest his defense might be weak, no one can fail to recognize his outstanding play on offense, and as teams have been forced to closely guard the former Reno high star, things have opened up for the other players.  Burton has become an offensive force and Hunt is cruising to double-doubles in the open lane.  When you add Malik Story’s 3pt shooting, the Pack has 4 players in their starting rotation that rank among the top statistical performers in the conference.  Using only Western Athletic Conference statistics:

• All 4 are in the top 13 in scoring.
• Hunt, Czyz and Burton are in the top 5 in Average Efficiency and the top 10 in Field Goal Percentage.
• Those same three are in the top 7 in Efficiency per Possession and also True Shooting Percentage (accounts for free throw productivity as well and field goal scoring).
• Czyz and Burton are 3^rd and 5^th respectively in 3pt Field Goal Percent.

Czyz' athleticism and inside-out ability have made a difference in the Pack (Photo by Mark Rauh of SilverandBlueSports.com)

But, while the offense has shown dramatic improvement, the same cannot be said for the defense.

The defense was already poor heading into the conference season, but I didn’t expect it to actually worsen like it has.  Some areas of performance like 3ptFG defense and Rebounding have shown improvement, but not enough to make up for the problems in other areas. The Effective FG% is marginally worse, but the ranking has improved slightly.  The negatives:

• Opponents are getting to the FT line far too often and when they get there they shoot a very high percent, so the wrong players are getting fouled.
• At the same time the 2ptFG defense has greatly fallen off with WAC opponents making almost 50% of their attempts. This is what has offset the better 3pt FG defense.
• It would be logical to assume that a team that is called for a lot fouls also forces a lot of turnovers, yet the Pack is among the worst in the nation in this area.

The combination of High 2ptFG%, High FT Rate and low Turnover Rate will almost always result in poor defensive efficiency and if the Pack is to become a threat to win the WAC Tournament, they must begin performing better in these areas.

Just for Fun: There has been some recent debate on the board comparing past players with Nevada’s current young stars. I thought it might be interesting to take statistical look at the past versus the present.

Center:

This chart compares former Wolf Pack big man and fan favorite Kevinn Pinkney’s stat line as a junior with Hunt’s stats this year to date.

Hunt has come into his own (Photo by Mark Rauh of SilverandBlueSports.com)

This was the match up that I found most surprising. Certainly Dario is a different style player than Pinkney. He’s smaller but more athletic and he doesn’t have the same offensive skills once displayed by Pink. But Dario has developed his own offensive style. He’s shown crafty moves around the basket and has mastered the skill of clearing the lane for penetrating guards and thus getting easy layups when his defender attempts to help versus the guard.

Pinkney was more of an intimidating and physical presence than Hunt, but Dario’s shot blocking and quickness help to even things out.  I fully expected Pink to have the greater rebound totals, but that’s not the case. I think Dario has developed even more than we’ve realized.

Point Guard:

This chart uses the freshman stat lines of Sessions and Johnson.  AJ and Deontè have obviously been more important as scorers while Ramon was more of a distributor and game manager.  AJ was a better FG shooter than Deonte, but Burton is far superior at getting to the free throw line. That’s how he’s able to almost match Johnson’s True Shooting Percentage even though his FG% is quite a bit lower than Armon’s.  The most obvious comparison is Johnson and Burton and it’s pretty equal.

So credit to all those who knew the impact Burton would have in this program in Year 1.

I fully expect Burton’s shooting percentages to improve across the board as the season progresses. He’s shown dramatic offensive improvement over the last several games, so by the end of the year, he might surpass the freshman performances of both AJ and Ramon.

Power Forward:

An odd comparison, but one I couldn’t resist as the numbers are so similar. Additionally, Nevada takes on Utah State in their next game, with a chance for the Wolf Pack to show that they are a threat in the WAC race. Here I’ve compared Tai’s 2010 junior year stats with Olek’s stats for this year to date.  Keep in mind that many people thought Wesley was the second best player in last year’s WAC with these stats.

In the first meeting of these two, Czyz won the battle (25pts/9boards to Wesley’s 21/8), but Wesley’s Aggies won the war.  I think Czyz would be perfectly happy to see that outcome reversed when these same teams meet in Logan next Wednesday.  For that to happen, the Nevada defense must begin to catch up with the much improved offense.