Dario Hunt wasn’t Nevada battle born but he feels like a native of the Silver State just the same.

“It’s the longest I’ve lived in any one place in my life,” the Nevada Wolf Pack center said recently.

Hunt, the son of two Air Force veterans, has only been in Nevada since the summer of 2008. But for the likable 6-foot-8, 230-pounder, that makes him silver and blue through and through.

“It’s kind of weird to be in one place that long,” Hunt smiled.

Hunt’s nomadic life ended the moment he settled into the paint at Lawlor Events Center as a Wolf Pack freshman in 2008-09. But getting to that stable point in his life wasn’t easy.

“We moved a lot,” Hunt said. “It was almost every two years.”

The Hunts didn’t always just move from one neighborhood to another. At times they even moved from one culture to another.

“We lived in Japan, in Turkey, six or seven different states,” Hunt said. “I don’t know if I even remember them all.”

Hunt’s lengthy resume, he said, also includes “four or five different elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools.”

For most youngsters, moving from bunk beds to a twin sized mattress is a big deal. Hunt, though, just took all of his new addresses in stride and treated them all as simply one gigantic interesting adventure.

“It’s not a big deal, really,” he said. “Not when you’re used to it. It was just kind of normal for me. It was all I knew. I would be like, ‘Oh, we’re moving again? OK. Where?’ And then we’d go to a new place.”

If he didn’t have family photos, he might not even remember all the places he’s lived.

“I was only two and 3-years-old when we were in Japan,” said Hunt, who was born in Tampa, Fla. “I really don’t remember much about it.”

Turkey, though, played a huge part in his athletic life.

“I lived there between the ages of seven and 10,” he said. “That’s where I really started to play basketball. We had a rec center there and I played basketball almost everyday against a lot of American kids, who also lived there. I had a lot of fun. All we did was play basketball all the time.”

Hunt, who possesses a big smile and an even bigger work ethic and competitive drive to succeed, learned at an early age how to adapt to change.

“Making new friends was never a problem for me,” said the mature Hunt, who will turn 23-years-old this May. “I just knew I had to go with it. I never really thought about it much. It was just something I had to do growing up, meeting new people, getting along with new people. It‘s not hard for me.”

His valuable ability to adapt to change and relate to people has served Hunt well in his four seasons at Nevada. He has been able to blend in with a wide variety of players who brought a vast collection of personalities and playing styles to the court. Hunt has also been part of two rebuilding projects with the Wolf Pack and each time played a crucial role.

The first time was as a freshman in 2008-09. The Pack had lost center JaVale McGee to the NBA draft in the spring of 2008 and also lost seniors Marcelus Kemp, David Ellis and Demarshay Johnson off a 2007-08 team that won the Western Athletic Conference regular season title.

Hunt, who came to Nevada in the fall of 2008 along with fellow recruits Luke Babbitt, Joey Shaw, Ahyaro Phillips and London Giles, was thrown into the fire right away.

“We had to put Dario in a tough spot for a freshman,” Pack coach David Carter said. “Instead of having a veteran player to learn his position from, he kind of had to learn it on his own.”

Hunt, came from Charis Prep in North Carolina after three years at Pine Creek High in Colorado Springs, Colo., just treated his freshman year just like it was yet another move from the United States to Japan or Turkey and back again.

“It was tough,” said Hunt of his freshman year at Nevada. “It certainly was a lot different than high school. The game was a lot faster. It wasn’t as easy to score. In high school I could just go out and dunk on most guys. But in college I had to work on my skill set. We had Richie (Phillips) here and Malik (Cooke) to help me but other than that I had to learn it on my own.”

Hunt started 27 of 34 games as a freshman, playing an average of just under 19 minutes a game. He never took more than six shots in a game and never scored more than nine points in averaging 3.6 points and 4.4 rebounds.

But on a team that had Armon Johnson, Babbitt, Cooke, Brandon Fields and Shaw, Hunt’s job wasn’t to score or even to think about shooting. Most of his field goal attempts, after all, came on offensive rebounds. But he served notice right away that he had something special to offer, blocking a Wolf Pack freshman-record 67 shots.

“He proved right away that he belonged,” Carter said.

Hunt, looking back, knows that the struggles he went through as a freshman have made him a better player today.

“It was exciting to get the chance to play right away,” Hunt said. “It’s what every player dreams about, to get to play college basketball on the biggest stage. It was the best thing for me. I came here because I knew I’d get a chance to play right away. I could have gone other places and sat on the bench that first year. But I wanted to play.”

One other place he could have gone is Harvard. Yes, he could have converted alley-oop lobs into dunks from point guard Jeremy Lin his first two seasons.

“Yeah, my mom really wanted me to go to Harvard,” smiled Hunt, who was also heavily recruited by such eastern schools as Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Bucknell and Penn. “And I could have gotten in, too. I took my visit there and really liked it. I came pretty close to going there.

“But I just felt this was the better place for me.”

The second Wolf Pack rebuilding project that Hunt was a part of took place in his junior year of 2010-11. Johnson and Babbitt jumped to the NBA, Fields and Shaw as well as sixth man Ray Kraemer also were gone from a 2009-10 team that went to the second round of the NIT.

Hunt, it seemed was the last man standing in 2010-11 on a team of wide-eyed freshman and transfers. He was suddenly the veteran leader in 2010-11 after two seasons as a complementary part to Babbitt, Johnson, Fields and Shaw.

“That was a little difficult,” said Hunt of being thrust into the leadership role by himself last year. “My first two years we had so many great players I didn’t really have to be a leader. But my junior year we had so many new guys. I knew I had to take my game to a new level.”

Hunt took many parts of his game to a new level, on and off the court.

He turned into a reliable scoring threat as a junior, averaging more points per game (12.4) than he did as a freshman (3.6) and sophomore (6.5) combined. He had 10 double-doubles in 2010-11 after getting just one over his first two years.

Hunt could have abused his role as the team leader in 2010-11 and continued to demand the ball all season. It was, after all, a team made up of mainly freshman who would have done whatever the wily veteran told them to do. But, like he has his entire career at Nevada, Hunt put the team’s overall growth and future success ahead of his own.

As his young teammates grew more confident with each passing game last season, Hunt backed off on the offensive end and settled back into his defensive-first role. After taking 10 or more shots in 10 of the first 15 games in 2010-11, he took just 10 or more in two of the last 17 games.

“All I want to do is win games,” Hunt said. “I don’t worry about my statistics.”

Hunt also upped his average rebound output per game to 9.7 as a junior from 7.0 as a sophomore. And, above all else, he became the leader the Pack needed him to be.

His most important message to his young teammates last year was something he learned himself as a freshman.

“I just told all those young guys to just go out and play and experience it for yourself,” Hunt said. “That’s the only way you learn. There are so many little things you have to learn in this game and the only way to learn them is by going out there and playing. You can’t learn those things by sitting on the bench and watching other people play.”

Hunt, Carter said, has matured every season on and off the court.

“We always talk with our players about what it takes every year to get better,” Carter said. “Dario always worked every year to improve his game. He learned every year how not to play outside himself and how he best helps the team.”

Hunt, who is a mere four points and 58 rebounds away from being just the fourth player in school history with both 1,000 career points and 1,000 rebounds, showed right away his freshman year how he would best help the Pack. And by the time his senior year ends next month, he will go down in history as one of the best defensive players in school history.

His 942 rebounds are the fourth most in school history behind Pete Padgett (1,464), Nick Fazekas (1,254) and Edgar Jones (1,016). His 247 blocks are already a school record, shattering Fazekas’ previous record of 192. Hunt, who already owns the school’s freshman record for blocks in a year (67), needs just one more block to break a tie he is currently in with Greg Palm (1981-82) for the senior record (55).

Defense, Hunt said, is what he lives for on the court.

“Defense has always been kind of ingrained in me,” Hunt said. “I think it came from when I played football growing up (until he got to high school) as a defensive end. Letting people score has always been a big problem for me. I don’t like it. I never have.”

Imagine a 6-foot-8 Hunt, with the wing span of a 747, the speed of a running back, the jumping ability of a hurdler and the tenacity of a honey badger, bearing down on quarterbacks and knocking their passes back down their throats. It would be sort of like what he’s done 247 times on the basketball court already.

“Yeah, it was a lot of fun,” said Hunt, who is a lifelong Oakland Raiders fan. “I loved football. I miss it.”

Pack fans will also miss Hunt when this season ends. But until that happens, he said, there are a lot more memories to create.

“Getting this program back to the NCAA tournament would be huge,” Hunt said. “There were a couple years (his freshman and sophomore years) when I thought we’d get there but it just didn’t happen. But this year we got a great chance. I love the players on this team.

“We want to put a banner up there (in the rafters of Lawlor). We want to get this program back to where it was. That’s why I play this game.”