“I didn’t see it go in, to be honest,” smiled Wolf Pack guard Deonte Burton. “I was ready to go back on defense. But then I heard the crowd react.”

The largest Lawlor Events Center basketball crowd in over three years (9,988) erupted in unison as Burton’s wild 3-pointer with 11 seconds (courtesy of WolfPackFilms) to play gave the Wolf Pack a 53-52 victory over the Utah State Aggies on Thursday night.

“It was a lucky shot,” said Burton, who landed forward on his chest as the ball fell through the basket. “I had confidence but it was lucky it went down.”

It was lucky and historic.

Burton’s prayer of a shot gave the Wolf Pack its 16th consecutive victory, equaling the longest winning streak in school history that was set in 1965-66.

“I’ve seen Deonte make those shots all the time in practice,” smiled junior guard Malik Story.

Don’t believe him.

“That was one of the luckiest shots I’ve ever seen,” senior center Dario Hunt said. “But I’ll take it any day.”

With the Pack trailing 52-50, Burton leaned into and under Utah State’s Preston Medlin just to the right of the top of the 3-point circle.

“I think he was trying to get fouled,” Wolf Pack coach David Carter said.

“I did get fouled,” Burton said without hesitation.

No foul was called.

“I thought he got fouled a little bit,” Carter said. “I understand they don’t want to call a foul in that situation. But when it went in, I was happy.”

The Pack, winners of 18 of their last 19 games, are now 19-3 overall and 8-0 in the Western Athletic Conference. Utah State, which has won the last four WAC regular season titles, fell to 12-11 and 4-4.

“Sometimes you have to be lucky,” Carter said.

Neither team had much luck or success until Burton’s shot. The Wolf Pack led just 19-18 at halftime in the lowest scoring first half in a Pack game this season.

“They were controlling the tempo and we had no tempo at all,” Carter said.

Both teams combined to miss 38-of-54 shots from the field, 14-of-16 3-pointers and six of nine free throws in the first half.

“Our offense was stagnating,” said Burton, who was 0-for-7 from the field and didn’t score in the first half. “We were standing around too much, not enough movement.”

“Our offense didn’t click that well,” said Story, who scored 10 of the Pack’s 18 first-half points. “It was a fun game to play in but it was hard on offense.”

Carter was happy to get to the halftime locker room with a slim lead.

“They had a great game plan on defense,” said Carter of Utah State. “But we tried to go one-on-one too much and we didn’t do a good job of trying to get the ball inside.”

Both offenses returned to normal in the second half. Utah State, which shot 29% in the first 20 minutes, was a sizzling 52% in the second half. The Pack also improved from 30% to 44%.

“It turned into a possession by possession game,” Carter said. “The guys really had to fight for this one.”

Utah State took a 36-29 lead with just under 14 minutes to go on a 3-point play by guard Brockeith Pane. The Aggies still led 42-37 after a 3-pointer by E.J. Farris with just over nine minutes to play.

It was Utah State’s offense, though, that did all the stagnating in the final nine minutes.

A jumper by Story tied the game at 42-42 with 7:20 to play and a Burton 3-pointer evened things at 46-46 with five minutes left. Story then drained a 3-pointer for a 49-48 lead with four minutes left but the Pack needed a free throw by Burton to tie the game at 50-50 with 2:34 remaining.

Pane, though, hit a short jumper in the lane for a 52-50 Utah State lead with 2:11 to play as the Pack was mired in a stretch of 3:49 without a field goal, from Story’s 3-pointer with four minutes to go until Burton‘s game-winner with 11 seconds to go.

Fortunately for the Pack, though, Utah State stopped scoring in the final two minutes. The Aggies couldn’t even get a shot to the rim.

The Pack’s Devonte Elliott blocked a shot by Ben Clifford with 27 seconds to go, keeping the Utah State lead at two (52-50). Elliott also blocked a layup by Morgan Grim to preserve the victory with one second to play.

“Devonte was huge,” said Hunt, who also had two blocks. “But that’s the type of team we have. We have a lot of people who can step up at any time and help us win.”

Burton also came up big on defense, swatting away an in-bounds pass under the basket intended for Kyisean Reed with five seconds to play.

“I just saw the guy rolling in to get the lob and I had to step up,” Burton said.

“They only had five seconds so I didn’t think they had time for penetration,“ said Carter of the Aggies’ in-bounds pass with the Pack up 53-52. “But I also didn’t think they’d go for the lob at that time. Deonte did a real nice job.”

The Pack’s biggest crowd since 10,526 showed up on New Year’s Eve 2008 (an 84-61 loss to No. 1 North Carolina) saw their silver and blue heroes improve to 12-1 at home this season. The Wolf Pack will host Idaho on Saturday night (7:05 p.m.) at Lawlor Events Center.

“This one was just ugly,” Hunt said. “One through five (the five starters) all played an ugly game.”

Until one unexplainable shot that was so ugly, it was, well, a thing of beauty.

“This just might be one of those seasons when you get shots like that to go down,” Hunt said.

FINAL STATS

Image Gallery
Photos by Silver and Blue Sports photographer Mark Rauh

Nevada PG Deonte Burton is taking control - photo by Mark Rauh

“We kind of put all our eggs in one basket at point guard,” the Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball head coach said of his narrow recruiting focus two years ago. “We wanted Deonte (Burton). And if he had gone to UCLA I don’t know what we would have done.”

Wolf Pack starting point guard Armon Johnson had just declared his intention to jump a year early to the NBA. Carter’s Wolf Pack was suddenly in desperate need of a new leader in the spring of 2010.

“There weren’t many point guards out there at the time, guys that could come right in and help us right away like we needed,” Carter said. “Back in December (2009), we kind of had an inkling that Armon was going to leave. We knew we had to get a point guard in case he left. That’s when we started to focus in on Deonte.”

The Pack wasn’t alone in its interest in Burton. The 6-foot-1 combination guard was on his way to a You Tube-filled highlight film festival of a season, averaging 21 points, six rebounds and five assists for Compton Centennial High in Southern California.

UCLA wanted Burton. At the other end of the country the Cincinnati Bearcats wanted him. Just about every California college that needed a point guard had him on its recruiting radar.

“We knew he was being recruiting heavily,” Carter said. “But I knew we had to get him.”

Carter, a former point guard in high school and college, knows a point guard when he sees one. And he simply fell in love with the idea of Burton running his Wolf Pack offense for the next four years.

“In April, I knew we were close,” Carter said. “But Cincinnati and UCLA gave him offers. I didn’t know if we would get him. I wasn’t too worried about Cincinnati because I didn’t think he’d go that far away from home. But I was real nervous about UCLA.”

Burton shocked all of Southern California by signing with the Wolf Pack in late April 2010.

The reason? Coach Carter.

“He was a big factor in my decision,” said Burton, who has started every game for the Pack the past two seasons and is a huge reason why the Wolf Pack is 17-3 right now and riding a 15-game winning streak. “I knew he (Carter) played point guard at Crenshaw High School (in Los Angeles). That was big for me.”

Carter, who won two state championships at Crenshaw as coach Willie West’s point guard and went on to start for four years at Saint Mary’s, leading the Gaels to the 1989 NCAA Tournament, is a point guard savant.

“I’ll always have a good point guard,” Carter says matter-of-factly. “I know what to look for. I played the position. I know what it takes to be successful at that position.”

Adrian McCullough, Andre Hazel, Jerry Petty and Todd Okeson handled the point guard position in Carter’s first four seasons at Nevada as Trent Johnson’s assistant. Those four didn’t exactly make fans forget great Pack point guards of the past like Billy Allen, Kevin Soares, Eathan O’Bryant, Curtis High, Darryl Owens, James Fontenet, Robin Kennedy and Johnny High. But they helped build the Pack ship just the shame as a young coaching staff (head coach Johnson and assistants Mark Fox and Carter) had to build a program from the ground up.

Everything, though, clicked in the 2003-04 season as Okeson became the all-around, dependable, floor leader at point guard that Carter had been looking for since he came to Nevada.

“Nevada has had terrific point guard play over the last decade,” said Fox, now in his third season as the head coach for the Georgia Bulldogs. “And David (Carter) has been the one consistent factor in the development of each of them.”

Okeson, though, came to Nevada because of Fox.

“Coach Fox knew him from his connections in Kansas,” Carter said. “I had never seen him play in person. I saw some tape of him and I saw that he could shoot the ball well. But Trent didn’t really like him at first, thought he was too small. And I was worried about his body, too. I didn’t know if he could take the physical pounding. But I saw that he had that toughness, that calm toughness.”

The 6-foot, 165-pound Okeson helped turn around the Wolf Pack basketball program, averaging 11.2 points and 3.9 assists in 2003-04 as the Pack advanced to the Sweet 16.

“As a player it was easy to relate to him because he had been in the same situations as I was in,” Okeson said. “Having a coach that had success playing point guard in college gives him credibility and the trust of young guards looking to develop their game.”

Okeson shared the point guard duties with Petty as a junior in 2002-03 before taking over as the full-time starter as a senior.

“Coach Carter was always in my ear giving me advice and instruction on how to become the best point guard I could be,” Okeson said. “He has high expectations for his point guards. He expects his point guards to run the team, to get their teammates the ball in favorable positions to score, all the while looking for your own shot. His knowledge of the position and his ability to relate to his players is what makes him not only a great point guard coach but also a great head coach.”

Fox, who coached with Carter as an assistant under Johnson for four years and was the Pack head coach for five years with Carter as his top assistant, gave Carter total control over the most important position on the floor.

“When I was at Nevada, I had complete trust of David’s leadership of that position,” Fox said.

Ramon Sessions, a talented scorer and play-maker from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, took over for Okeson at the point in 2005-06 and led the Pack to three more NCAA Tournament appearances in a row. Armon Johnson came from Reno’s Hug High in 2007-08 and led the Pack to three more postseason appearances (two College Basketball Invitationals and one NIT) before Burton took over in 2010-11.

“All four of them (Okeson, Sessions, Johnson and Burton) have four fairly different types of games,” Fox said. “Ramon and Armon were scoring guards in high school who always had the ball in their hands. But I felt when we recruited them, with David’s knowledge and ability to teach them, that both those kids could become terrific full-time point guards. One of my last recruiting days at Nevada was to go see Deonte work out. Watching him (Burton) play this year, it’s not surprising to me that David’s been able to do it again.”

Sessions finished his career in second place on the Wolf Pack’s list of career assists with 478. Johnson is fourth at 445. Burton, after a little more than a year and a half, already has 208 assists.

Sessions, who had the good fortune to play with Nick Fazekas in his three Pack years, averaged 4.9 assists a game in his 98-game career. Johnson, who played with such talented scorers as Marcelus Kemp and Luke Babbitt in his three Nevada seasons, averaged 4.4 in his 101 games. Burton, who is often times his own leading scorer, has averaged 3.9 assists in his 53 games.

Carter has a full checklist of qualities he looks for in all point guards. He selects his point guards on what he sees with his own two eyes and also what he feels in his gut.

“All of those guys (Okeson, Sessions, Johnson and Burton) have that it factor,” Carter said. “When I’m looking for a point guard, that’s what I have to see. It’s a toughness, a fearlessness, a competitiveness.”

And that’s just the first things he looks for.

“The things I look for in all point guards are their decision-making abilities, how they lead their team out on the floor,” Carter said. “Is he out there just looking for his own shot or is he looking to put his teammates in a good position to score? What is his demeanor?

“I saw Deonte score 30 points in the first half of one game in high school. That didn’t impress me. I already knew he could score. What I was interested in was his demeanor in the second half. Did he change? Did he become selfish or did he continue to lead his team? He went out there and didn’t try to pad his numbers. He went out there and always did what his team needed. That’s leadership.”

There is also something else that Carter looks for in his prospective point guards.

“I need to see their relationship with their head coach,” Carter said. “I need to see how he interacts with his head coach during a game. Does he listen to the coach? Does he communicate with his coach? Does that coach lean on him during a game? Does the coach ask him questions? Very seldom will you find a good point guard who is quiet on the floor and during timeouts. I want to see how he leads the team on and off the floor.”

Carter puts tremendous trust and faith in his point guards. That’s something that Nance taught him at Saint Mary’s.

“Coach Nance would look at me in the huddle and ask me what I thought, what plays we should run at certain times,” Carter said. “That instilled in me a great confidence that he trusted me. He trusted my leadership, my knowledge of the game.

“That’s something I try to do also. When we’re in the huddle, I’ll ask Deonte what he thinks and if he thinks a play I just called will work. A lot of times he’ll say, ‘No, Coach. That won’t work, let’s do this.’ And I’ll do what he suggests. The point guard sees a lot more just by being out on the floor. Coach Nance taught me to trust the point guard because a coach can only see so much from the bench.”

Burton’s gut feeling about Carter when he made his college choice has proven true the past year and a half.

“I knew he likes his point guards to be able to shoot and score and also to be able to run the team,” Burton said. “To play for him as a point guard you also have to be a leader of your team and you have to be an extension of him out on the court. That’s the most important thing. He has to know that he can trust me.”
Burton trusted Carter immediately.

“He can see what I see out there,” Burton said. “He knows what I’m thinking and he can correct all my mistakes. That’s big for me as a point guard because I know he’s experienced everything I’m experiencing out there.”

Carter was a pass-first point guard at both Crenshaw and Saint Mary’s. At Crenshaw he led the Cougars to a perfect 24-0 season his senior year and averaged 11.1 points and 6.6 assists. He did, however, score a pair of baskets in the final two minutes of the state title game to send the game into overtime.

At Saint Mary’s under coaches Bill Oates (1985-86) and Lynn Nance (1986-7 through 1988-89), he started 105 games and finished with the school’s all-time career assist record of 498 (since eclipsed by Kamran Sufi with 507). Carter’s career average of 4.45 assists a game is third in school history and his 130 career steals are fourth.

“I wasn’t the best athlete, the best shooter,” Carter said. “But I understood the game. I understood the commitment you have to have to be successful.”

“I have had many conversations with David’s high school coach, Willie West of Crenshaw, and his college coach, Lynn Nance of Saint Mary’s,” Fox said. “Both have said that David was a terrific leader on the floor because of his mind, his vision and his instincts. He was a champion because of those traits and not his pure speed and quickness. And those are the things he has been able to instill in Nevada’s players.”

Okeson might not have come to Nevada originally because of Carter. But, he says, he succeeded at Nevada because of Carter.

“If you buy into what he’s saying, the sky’s the limit,” Okeson said.

“I tell my guys, ‘You are going to be haunted by the ghosts,’” said Nevada coach David Carter, a believer in all things spiritual and mystical when it comes to the Wolf Pack basketball Gods. “I tell them, ‘The ghosts are real. They are there. Those ghosts came before you.’”

Nick Fazekas, Ramon Sessions, Kevinn Pinkney, Kirk Snyder, Todd Okeson, Gary Hill-Thomas, Marcelus Kemp, Jermaine Washington, Sean Paul, Kyle Shiloh, Mo Charlo, Denis Ikovlev.

The Wolf Pack’s Ghosts of NCAA Tournaments Past, every single one of them.

You just know that when the lights are turned off at Lawlor, when the crowd has safely journeyed back home, the music and the scoreboard are turned off and the doors are locked, those ghosts come down from the rafters. They effortlessly slip on their spotless blue and white Nevada uniforms, step out on the court and whip Kansas, UNLV, Michigan State, Gonzaga and Texas all over again.

They never lose. That’s the beauty of being a ghost. Ghosts are eternally undefeated. Every shot that leaves their fingers is true and perfect. Every pass crisp and smart. And at the end of the night, before they fly back up to the rafters, they cut down the nets and lift a cute cheerleader on their shoulders and a trophy above their heads.

“I challenge my team to be as good as those ghosts,” said Carter, who knew all those silver and blue ghosts personally.

The Pack ghosts take on quite a few different forms. They are the banners that hang from the ceiling, like long and flowing tombstones, complete with dates and titles. Some of them have even taken on a lifelike form, sat courtside, shaken hands and exchanged hugs with well-wishers and gobbled popcorn and soft drinks.
But, mostly, their most chilling and frightening form has been the thousands of empty, comatose seats at Lawlor, night after night.

Until now.

The ghosts are being pushed out of Lawlor, finally, after five years. A crowd of 7,016 — the first gathering of over 7,000 fans at Lawlor for a Pack basketball game since March 6, 2010 — showed up to see the Wolf Pack beat Fresno State, 74-61, last Saturday night.

Ghosts? What ghosts? The Wolf Pack has its longest winning streak — 13 games — since the ghosts won 14 in a row from January to March, 2006.

“I didn’t get to watch those teams that much,” said Pack senior forward Olek Czyz, who was winning high school state titles at Reno High when the ghosts were frightening foes from coast to coast from 2004-07. “But, really, we don’t focus on what those teams did that much. This group, we don’t look at those teams. We are focused on what we have to do.”

This Pack team doesn’t believe in ghosts.

“I’ve heard about those teams,” sophomore point guard Deonte Burton said. “I know there have been some great players who played here.”

But that’s about the extent of his knowledge of the eerie demons that live in the Lawlor rafters.

“No, I never really heard about all those teams or those players before I came here,” Burton said, not intending any disrespect.

One of the strengths of this year’s Pack team is its innocence. And, to be sure, it would be a shame to shatter that innocence just when the party is getting started at Lawlor once again.

But the reason for the innocence is because the ghosts have left them alone before now. There was no reason, after all, for the ghosts to rattle their chains in the middle of the night, no reason to howl when this team was going 13-19 a year ago.

Why bother? A ghost, after all, has to conserve its energy. Why waste all of their ghostly powers on a team that had a knack of scaring itself, a group that didn’t even go to a postseason tournament? Last year’s team didn’t even know enough to be afraid of ghosts.

So the ghosts left them alone.

Until now.

This Pack team, to this point, has only been compared to itself. All of the questions they’ve had to answer, all of the expectations they’ve had to meet were all based on last year’s 13-19 season. All of the questions have been about their improvement from a year ago, how much they’ve matured, how the mindset has changed this year, how much weight they’ve lost or gained, how good it must feel to be in a winning streak.

The expectations heaped upon this team this year, to be honest, have not been great. Last year, don’t forget, they couldn’t even get invited to a dot com tournament. That’s why, after all, 7,000 fans didn’t show up for a game this year until the winning streak hit 13.

But that’s all about to change. The ghosts are waking up.

The more this team wins, the more it will be compared to the 2004-07 ghosts. The expectations will rise with every victory. The Malik Story of 2011-12 will no longer be compared to a pudgy and winded Malik Story of 2010-2011. He’ll now be compared to sleek and tireless NBA draft pick Kirk Snyder. Deonte Burton won’t be compared to a deer-in-the-headlights, wide-eyed Deonte Burton of 2010-11. He’ll now be compared to a fearless, smart, coach-on-the-floor NBA draft pick Ramon Sessions.

Burton, Story and Czyz and the rest of this team will get to know Fazekas, Sessions, Snyder, Pinkney and Charlo better than they want to know them. They’ll hear about the tournament wins over Michigan State, Gonzaga, Texas and Creighton, the Western Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles and, yes, the way northern Nevada was in a Wolf Pack basketball frenzy for four seasons.

And, you can be sure, Carter wants them to hear about it.

“It’s a challenge,” Carter said. “You want to be challenged by those teams. Those are the expectations we have in this program. That’s why when people ask me about winning 12 or 13 games in a row I always answer that we haven’t done anything yet. Our goals are not about winning streaks. Our goals are higher than that.
We want to win championships.”

It might be too early — and a little unfair — to start comparing this year’s team to the ghosts. No matter what happens this year, after all, the best for this group might be yet to come. The bulk of this group will be back the next two years, just like the 2003-04 team that created the ghosts.

But that’s the deal with ghosts. They never show up when you want them to show up. They show up when they want to show up. And, you can be sure, they are back.

“Only champions erase champions, erase those ghosts,” Carter said. “That’s our challenge. I tell my team, ‘If you want people to forget about all those championship teams of the past, then you have to go out and win a championship yourself.”

This year’s team has it much tougher than the ghosts had it. The ghosts, after all, didn’t have any ghosts to haunt them. When the 2003-04 team went to the NCAA Tournament, it had been 19 years (1985) since the Pack had been in the national spotlight. And, with apologies to the likes of Dwyane Randall, Tony Sommers, Rob Harden, Curtis High, Ed Porter, Mike Parillo and Tony Ronzone, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone in 2004 who could rattle off a few names from that 1985 team.

This year’s team, like all Pack teams since 2007, have had their own personal ghosts.

Fazekas has haunted every Pack forward and center to come after him. Okeson and Sessions have haunted all the point guards. Pinkney has been the standard of toughness that no Pack player after him can compete with. Snyder and Kemp have haunted all the shooting guards. Charlo, Shiloh, Washington and Hill-Thomas have haunted all of the scrappy guards and forwards whose job is to do all of the little things.

Carter, whose ghosts Trent Johnson and Mark Fox are ghosts he helped create as a Pack assistant for 10 years, knows how daunting the personal ghosts can be.

“I always tell my players not to worry about being those players,” Carter said. “I told Luke Babbitt, ‘Don’t try to be Nick Fazekas. You are not Nick Fazekas.’ I told Armon (Johnson) and Deonte (Burton), ‘Don’t try to be Ramon Sessions. You are not Ramon Sessions.’

“But what I tell them is this. ‘Your motivation is not to be the next Nick Fazekas or Marcelus Kemp or Ramon Sessions or Kevinn Pinkney. Your motivation is to get people to say after you’re gone, ‘I remember Olek Czyz. He was a great player. I remember Malik Story. I remember Deonte Burton. I remember Dario Hunt. Those guys could play.’

“I want these guys to become the ghosts for the next generation of players.”

“My shot selection has been much better and I’m making sure I’m getting in a good rhythm this year,” Story said.

Story is currently fourth in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage at .491 ((54-of-110). The junior shooting guard is also second on the Wolf Pack in scoring at 14.5 points a game, behind Deonte Burton (15.6).

“This year I’m keeping my mechanics the same on every shot,” Story said. “I’m not rushing it like I would sometimes last year. “I’m making sure I’m always ready to shoot.”

Burton’s emergence as a scorer who can carry the team this year has helped relieve some of the pressure off Story. Story led the Pack in scoring last season at 14.5 points a game but has improved his 3-point percentage immensely, up from .386 a year ago.

“That helps a whole lot,” said Story of Burton taking over a bulk of the scoring responsibility in crucial moments of the game at times this year. “We feed off each other. When he‘s taking over I can go and do other things to help us win, like rebound and play defense and pass the ball. It makes it a lot easier when you know you don‘t have to always do it by yourself.”

“Since Deonte has taken over some games that frees Malik up,” coach David Carter said. “Teams now have to focus on Deonte and they are leaving Malik open at times. Last year teams would guard Malik a lot closer because Deonte hadn’t proven he could take over games.”

Story also dropped 20 pounds this past off-season, keeping his legs fresher this year.

“I feel w lot better this year,” Story said. “there were a few games when I did get tired but I’m past that now. I have my second wind and I should be fresh for the rest of the season.”

NYEKO STEPPING UP: Carter appreciates the effort of role player Patrick Nyeko this year.
“Patrick has been very consistent all season,” Carter said. “When I put him in there I know what I’m going to get, offensively and defensively. That is big for us.”

The 6-foot-6 Nyeko is now in his third Wolf Pack season after playing in just 26-of-66 games the past two years for a total of 332 minutes (8.1 an appearance). This year Nyeko has appeared in all 19 games and is averaging 14.6 minutes a game as well as 1.8 points and 1.5 rebounds. He also has contributed 13 assists, two blocks and eight steals this year.

Nyeko has still struggled on offense this year, making just 10-of-30 shots (.333), 13-of-22 free throws (.591) and just 2-of-13 3-pointers (.154). The past two years combined he was 10-of-35 from the floor
(.286), 3-of-15 on threes (.200) and 18-of-24 on free throws (.750).

Carter, though, isn’t worried about Nyeko’s offense.

“Patrick has done a real nice job for us,” Carter said. “I can depend on him coming off the bench. He won’t take shots outside his comfort zone and he always goes out there and hustles on the defensive end and gives us a spark.”

TOUGH TEST AT LAS CRUCES: Carter calls the New Mexico State Aggies — the Wolf Pack’s opponent Thursday night in Las Cruces, N.M. — the most physical team in the Western Athletic Conference.

“They are going to want to go inside on us,” Carter said. “They are going to want to get our big men in foul trouble because they have more depth than we do. We need Dario (Hunt) to stay on the floor. We need Olek (Czyz) to stay on the floor.”

The 16-3 Wolf Pack will take a 13-game winning streak to Las Cruces.

“They are a real big physical team,” Hunt said. “They will try to be physical with us. And we can‘t back down from them.”

The Aggies are led by 6-6 forward Wendell McKines, who leads the WAC in scoring (18.4) and rebounding (10.5). Hamidu Rahman, a 6-11 center, also averages 6.6 rebounds and point guard Hernst LaRoche is averaging 12.1 points a game as well as 1.8 steals.

The Aggies also lead the nation in free throws attempts (670) and free throws made (450).

“We can’t control the whistles,” hunt said. “We just have to go down there and play our game.”

FREE THROW STRUGGLES: The Wolf Pack continues to have problems at the free throw line. The Pack is shooting just .636 from the line and is ranked 300th in the nation out of 338 teams.

“At this time of year your team kind of is what it is,” Carter said. “We’re not a good free throw shooting team. But we continue to work on it everyday in practice. We’re going to continue to try and get better.”

The Wolf Pack has six players (among those with 10 or more attempts) under. 600 at the line: Czyz (.562), Hunt (.459), Devonte Elliott (.500), Kevin Panzer (.500), Jordan Finn (.538) and Nyeko (.591).

Burton, at .795 (89-of-112), Story at .786 (44-of-56) and Jerry Evans Jr. at .714 (209-of-28) are the Pack’s top free throw shooters.

CARTER REACHES MILESTONE: Carter became the 10th Wolf Pack coach in history to win 50 games with a 74-61 victory over Fresno State last Saturday.

The last seven Pack coaches (Jim Carey, Sonny Allen, Len Stevens, Pat Foster, Trent Johnson, Mark Fox and Carter) have all passed the milestone. Just three (Doc Martie, Jake Lawlor and Jack Spencer) of the first 10 did it.

Carter has a career record of 50-35. It took him 51 games to earn his first 25 victories and just 34 to get his second 25.

“I’m this team’s biggest fan,” said Crook of his Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball teammates. “I grew up watching all those great teams go to the NCAA tournament (2004-07).”

As far as Crook is concerned right now he’s the American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, The Apprentice and America’s Got Talent champion all rolled into one.

“I loved those (Wolf Pack) teams,” Crook said. “I never thought I’d ever play for this school. I just love being a part of it and helping this team.”

Brice Crook’s improbable journey to Lawlor Events Center this winter is not typical television reality programming. That’s because reality would have told him he had a better shot at becoming America’s Next Top Model.

“I didn’t know if I could do it,” said Crook of his plans on joining the Wolf Pack this season.

He wasn’t the only one.

Reality would have told Crook that a hockey player just doesn’t decide one day to play Division I basketball. Nobody, after all, goes from left wing to shooting guard in one magical summer. Reality Also would have also told him that a guy who hadn’t played competitive basketball in four years had no right to even dream about one day slipping on a Division I basketball uniform.

“When I first started to think about doing it, I didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “I didn’t even tell my family or my friends at first. I just wanted to see if I could do it for myself.”

Attempting to play Division I basketball, though, was merely Crook’s latest improbable dream. Rewind to a decade ago when Crook was in elementary school and playing roller hockey.

That’s right. Roller hockey. No ice. No blades on his skates. No puck. It’s hockey on wheels with a ball.

“I had never ice skated in my life,” Crook said.

That didn’t stop him from dreaming about becoming an ice hockey player.

“I played against some national competition in roller hockey and there were a lot of guys there that played ice hockey,” Crook said. “I was killing them all out there.”
That’s when Crook decided to go across the country to play ice hockey for Triton High in Massachusetts as a high school freshman.

“I always knew I had the potential in hockey because of my size,” said Crook, who now stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 205 pounds. “I was big for a hockey player and they (hockey scouts) like that. I really wanted to give it a try.”

He did more than that, leading Triton in goals and points and helping his team reach the state tournament.

“I had to live with a family I didn’t know,” Crook said. “That’s what you do in junior hockey. I just got a little homesick. It was a tough year for me, being away from home. I was just a freshman and away from home for the first time. I decided to come back.”

Crook was back playing basketball for the Carson High Senators as a sophomore in 2004-05.

“No hockey at all,” he said. “I kind of gave up the sport for the rest of my high school years and just wanted to focus on basketball.”

Crook played his sophomore year at Carson High and his junior and senior years at Galena High.

“My dad got a new job in Reno and moved the family,” said Crook, explaining his transfer to Galena. “It worked out well for me because I got a chance to play for a state championship at Galena.”

Crook was an instrumental player on the Galena Grizzlies 2007 state championship team. The Grizzlies, led by future Wolf Pack star Luke Babbitt as well as starters Crook, Tristan Hill, J.D. Peters and Eric Maupin, won the Class 4A state title in Las Vegas, still the only northern Nevada school to win state down south in over four decades.

“Luke was such a great player so the four of us (Crook, Peters, Maupin and Hill) all agreed to take a secondary role to help us win a championship,” said Crook, who averaged 10.5 points for the Grizzlies as a senior. “It worked out great for us. We won state. And Luke was great to play with. He appreciated everything we did to help him. Luke (a junior in 2006-07) really did respect our senior class that year and we had respect for him.”

Crook’s basketball career, though, seemed to come to an end the second the Grizzlies put the finishing touches on their 54-51 victory over Mojave at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

“I didn’t get any Division I offers,” he said. “A few Division II teams were interested in me but that was it.”

It was back to hockey for Crook after three years away from the game.

From 2007-08 through 2010-11, Crook played ice hockey for four teams: the Waterloo Siskins in Ontario, Canada and the Capital Thunder in Roseville, Calif., in junior hockey and in college for the Elmira (New York) Soaring Eagles and the Worcester (Mass.) State Lancers.

A year ago this month, Crook was playing college hockey for Worcester State, scoring a goal, picking up four assists and being called for eight minutes in penalties in seven games. The year before at Elmira College, he had an assist and six minutes of penalties in six games.

“My last year in ice hockey, I was finally feeling comfortable on my edges,” Crook said. “I could always skate fast straight ahead. That was never a problem. But it took me a while to be able to do all of the little things on my skates.

“It was tough because I was still leaning things that those guys started learning when they were 3-years-old, playing hockey growing up. I was always behind those guys. That was a big disadvantage for me. But I was getting more and more comfortable. But then I blew out my shoulder and that was it.”

He came back home last spring with another improbable dream. He wanted to see if he could join the Wolf Pack as a non-scholarship player.

“He called me last spring,” Pack coach David Carter said. “I remembered him from Galena a little bit (the Pack recruited Babbitt that year). And I wasn’t looking to add any walk-ons at that time. But I told him it would be OK for him to come play with the guys in our open gyms in the summer.”

That was all Crook needed to hear. He started working out with a personal trainer in the summer.

“Both of us were realistic about his chances of making the team as a long shot. But that drives guys like us,”

said former Galena High star Mike Atkinson, a personal trainer who works for Sierra Strength and Speed and Elite Pro Performance in northern Nevada.

“He whipped me into shape,” said Crook of Atkinson. “I never worked so hard in my life. But I knew if I wanted to do this the right way I had to get into basketball shape.”

Still, at first, he didn’t tell anyone about his goal to play for the Wolf Pack.

“We agreed to keep his aspirations and training private,” Atkinson said. “It was because we wanted to see how far he would progress during the summer. It was more of a personal challenge for Brice and not an ego-driven Division I chase. And I respected that.”

Atkinson was immediately impressed with Crook’s commitment.

“He’s the type of athlete that never takes a day off,” Atkinson said. “It’s just not in his DNA to not compete when given an opportunity.”

Carter gave Crook that opportunity at the end of the Pack’s open gyms late in the summer, telling Crook he could report for the first day of practice on Oct. 14.

“I remember asking the guys, ‘What do you think about that kid Crook?’” Carter said. “They told me right away, ‘Oh, coach, he can play. He can really shoot the ball. He competes with us.’

“So I was impressed right away. To me, that was the most important thing, how he fit in with everybody. And, believe me, if they didn’t like him, they would have told me. But I didn’t hear any negative things about him.”

Crook knew that, as a walk-on player sitting at the end of the Pack bench, his most important responsibility was to be a great teammate.

“I think I’m here now because everyone on the team kind of liked me and they liked having me around,” Crook said. “I fit in with them. I think that’s what Coach Carter based his decision on.”

Crook, in addition to being a very underrated athlete, has always been a great teammate, whether it was hockey in Canada and the northeast or basketball in northern Nevada.

“I’ve always been like that on all the teams I’ve played on,” he said. “My teammates have liked me and I’ve liked being around them. I think I’ve fit in real well on all my teams.”

His role with the Pack, though, is more than just being everyone’s buddy. He still had to prove that he could play. The left wing, after all, still had to transform back into a shooting guard in one magical summer.

“When we started his strongest skill was his conditioning, his toughness and his shooting ability,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson remembered Crook’s toughness and competitiveness from 2007.

“He had a full-court sprint and a dive for the basketball to save a loose ball in the (regional title game) against Douglas,” Atkinson said. “Ever since that play, when I ran into him around town, even before we started training together, I reminded him that he was a state champion because of his willingness to give himself up for the team. I knew he would bring that willingness to compete and that desire to Nevada.”

Crook comes by his toughness and competitiveness, as well as his athletic ability and never-say-die desire to pursue his dreams, honestly. His father Ray and grandfather Rusty are legendary northern Nevada prep athletes.

Rusty Crook was an outstanding skier and track athlete for Reno High, the University of Denver and Nevada and was a long-time coach in northern Nevada. Ray Crook was one of the greatest high school track athletes in Nevada prep history at Wooster High in the 1970s. He was the first Nevada high school athlete to ever clear 16 feet in the pole vault, doing it in March 1977 at the Washoe Relays.

“He’s not just a young kid doing it without work,” Wooster High track coach Phil Person told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 1977. “He’s the last to leave practice every night, night after night.”

Person was talking about Ray Crook. He could just as easily have been talking about Ray Crook’s son Brice 35 years later.

Carter sees that legendary Crook toughness and competitiveness almost everyday in practice.

“We tease him a lot about his hockey days,” Carter said. “We’ll run a play and Brice is out there banging into guys like he’s still playing hockey. We tell him, ’Hey, this isn’t hockey. You can’t just run and knock guys down.’ But he’s out there practicing hard everyday and he helps make everyone better.”

In an earlier interview with the Gazette-Journal in 1975, Person said one other revealing thing about Ray Crook.

“You don’t tell Ray he can’t do anything,” Person said.

Again, he could have said the same about Brice. He is, don’t forget, playing for the Wolf Pack basketball team after four years of playing hockey.

Crook has played in five of the Pack’s 19 games this year for a total of nine minutes. He has made one 3-pointer (out of two attempts) and has two rebounds and three total points.

Now, nine minutes over 19 games might not sound like much. But those nine minutes are why Crook worked so hard this summer trying to do the impossible.

“My job is to just be a role player and I thoroughly enjoy my role,” Crook said. “My job is to encourage my teammates and give them support.”

“And he can play,” Carter said. “I know when I do put him out there he’s not going to hurt the team.”

Crook’s improbable and unlikely journey the past eight years has him right where he wanted to be all along.

“This is the only team I would try to walk-on with,” he said. “I wouldn’t walk-on anywhere else. It means a lot for me to be able to play with this team. It’s special to me.”

Well, Malik Story started doing jumping jacks in the middle of the court Saturday night with just under five minutes to play.

“I just wanted to get the crowd into it a little,” smiled the junior Wolf Pack guard.

The season’s largest crowd of 7,016 fans saw the Wolf Pack race past the Fresno State Bulldogs 74-61 on Saturday night at Lawlor Events Center for their 13th victory in a row.

“The crowd was great tonight,” senior Dario Hunt said. “We fed off that.”

The northern Nevada community is also feeding off the hottest team in college basketball west of the Mississippi right now. The Wolf Pack, winners of 16 of their last 17 games to improve to 16-3 overall and 5-0 in the Western Athletic Conference, owns the second longest winning streak in the nation behind Murray State (20 games in a row).

“The feeling in our locker room this year is a lot different than last year,” said Hunt, who had 13 points and 11 rebounds against the Bulldogs. “Winning is always a good feeling.”

Fresno State (9-12, 1-4) was feeling pretty good about itself early in the first half, taking a 15-4 lead seven minutes into the game.

“They spread us out a little in the first half and we let them get some easy baskets,” Hunt said.

Fresno point guard Steven Shepp had a pair of lay-ups and Tyler Johnson hit a 3-pointer and a short jumper to key the Bulldogs’ 11-point lead. Kevin Olekaibe, the second-leading scorer in the WAC at 18.4 points a game, also had a 3-pointer for an 18-8 Fresno State lead.

“They were running their sets real well and we were chasing them around a little bit,” said Pack point guard Deonte Burton, who had 18 points and six assists.

Fresno held its first-half lead until the Pack’s Olek Czyz hit a jumper to tie the game at 18-18 with 7:47 left. The game was tied seven times in the first half until a jumper by Story gave the Pack a 32-30 advantage at the break.

“The game was played at (Fresno State’s) tempo for the first 25 minutes or so,” Pack coach David Carter said. “I was a little frustrated in the first half. Fresno is a small team and we knew they were going to pressure us and we made some lazy passes early in the game.”

The Bulldogs, who had just nine players, took a 39-38 lead on a jumper by Jerry Brown with 13:38 to play in the second half. The Pack took a 36-33 lead and then went the next four-plus minutes and scored just two points.

“When we started to lock down on them defensively, that’s when we pulled away,” said Hunt, who blocked three shots.

The Wolf Pack outscored the out-manned Bulldogs 25-9 over a stretch of 8:39 to take a commanding 63-48 lead with 4:29 to go. Story kick-started the Pack outburst with a 3-pointer for a 42-39 lead. Backup point guard Jordan Finn also had a 3-pointer for a 47-40 lead, Hunt and Czyz had dunks and Hunt, Story and Czyz had lay-ups as the Pack wore down the Bulldogs in the second half.

“I think we did a little,” Carter said. “They seemed to get a little tired in the second half. Some of their shots were short. We wore them down a little.”

The Bulldogs made just seven of their final 24 shots.

“I didn’t notice them getting tired,” Burton said. “They were still running their stuff and playing hard.”

They just weren’t getting the same results.

The Bulldogs played just seven players against the Pack despite two of their starters — Tyler and Jonathan Wills — fouling out. Olekaibe and Shepp each played 39 minutes and the two Fresno State guards were just a combined 7-of-25 from the floor (3-of-12 from 3-point range).

“We just wanted to make sure that someone was always there when he caught the ball,” said Carter of Olekaibe.

Olekaibe, from Cimarron-Memorial High School in Las Vegas, scored just 13 points on 4-of-17 shooting.

“We wanted to force him into bad shots,” Carter said. “But every time he made one I always got a little nervous because he’s the kind of guy who can get hot in a hurry.”

It was the Wolf Pack who seemed to get hot in a hurry in the second half, turning a close game into an opportunity to do jumping jacks with 4:41 to play with a 13-point (61-48) lead. The Pack hit 11-of-15 shots during its game-changing 25-9 run while Fresno was just 3-of-12.

“They are a small team so they took a lot of jump shots,” Burton said. “We were able to get those rebounds and push it up the floor for easy shots.”

The Wolf Pack, now 11-1 at home this season, will head to New Mexico State on Thursday and Louisiana Tech on Saturday. The Pack, which has just five home games left this season, doesn’t return to Lawlor until Feb. 2 against Utah State.

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Silver and Blue Sports photgrapher Mark Rauh was on hand to capture the action

“They are still a very dangerous team,” senior forward Olek Czyz said of the Bulldogs. “It’s a WAC game and we want to win the WAC.”

The Bulldogs, who will come to Lawlor Events Center Saturday night (7:05 p.m.) to take on the Wolf Pack, are struggling this year at 9-11 overall and 1-3 in the WAC. The 15-3 Wolf Pack is riding a 12-game winning streak and leads the WAC at 4-0.

“They can be a scary team,” junior forward Malik Story said. “They are small and scrappy. They are going to pressure us and try to make us turn the ball over and get a lot of steaks. We just need to take care of the ball.”

The Bulldogs are led by 6-foot-1 guard Kevin Olekaibe, who averages 18.4 points a game. Steven Shepp (6.2 points) and Tyler Johnson (8.6 points) are both 6-2. Jonathan Wills is averages 11.3 points and 4.8 rebounds and stands 6-6. The 6-7 Jerry Brown chips in with 8.4 points and 6-8 Kevin Foster scores at a 7.2 clip.

“They basically play five guards,” Pack coach David Carter said. “They are very small and don’t have a lot of size inside. We just have to guard the perimeter and take care of their pressure.”

The Bulldogs lost to Hawaii, Utah State and Idaho in WAC play and beat San Jose State when Olekaibe scored 32 points.

“Games like this are huge for us,” Carter said. “Whenever you play well and beat a conference team is sends a message to when you play them the next time. And we have to protect our home court.. We know they are goi9ng to want to come in here and steal a victory and we can’t let that happen.”

PACK LEARNED FROM MISTAKES IN 2010-11: Last season’s struggles have played a big role in this year’s success.

The Wolf Pack finished 13-19 a year ago and missed the postseason for the first time since the 2001 season. At 15-3 the Pack seems destined for some sort of postseason tournament this year and has its eyes on a WAC regular season and tournament title and a NCAA tournament berth.

“Last year definitely brought us all closer,” sophomore point guard Deonte Burton said. “We all came back this year and said to each other that we can’t have a season like we had last year.”
“We’re on a mission,” senior center Dario Hunt said.

HUNT ALMOST 100%: Hunt has been playing with a sore left shoulder in recent weeks.

“I think he’s close to 100 per cent now,” Carter said. “He’s back to taking part in all our contact drills and his range of motion has improved a great deal. If he’s not 100 percent it’s close.”

Hunt had 14 points and 11 rebounds in Tuesday’s 81-69 victory over Nebraska Omaha after scoring just seven points combined in two victories over San Jose state and Hawaii last week.

“It’s feeling much better now,” Hunt said.

STORY COMES ALIVE: Carter had a simple message for Story at halftime of the Omaha game.

“Coach got on me a little and told me I wasn’t playing hard enough,” said Story, who had seven points at halftime. “I was playing kind of laid back in the first half and I felt I was letting my teammates down.”

Story more than made up for it in the second half draining all three of his 3-pointers and finishing with a game-high 20 points.

CARTER APPROACHING MILESTONE: Carter will be shooting for his 50th victory as Pack head coach Saturday night against Fresno State.

Now in his third year as head coach, Carter is 49-35 overall. He was just 25-26 after 51 games but has gone 24-9 since.

Carter is about to be just the 10th head coach in school history to get to 50 victories after Doc Martie, Jake Lawlor, Jack Spencer, Jim Carey, Sonny Allen, Len Stevens, Pat Foster, Trent Johnson and Mark Fox.

Fox and Lawlor are the fastest in school history to get to 50 victories. Both coaches did it in 62 games.
Carey did it in just 76 games, followed by Allen (90), Martie (94), Stevens (96), Foster (98), Johnson (109) and Spencer (111).

QUICK TURNAROUND: The Wolf Pack, with its 14th victory against Hawaii on Jan. 14, surpassed its entire win total (13) from the previous season in just its 17th game.

That is the quickest the Pack has surpassed its win total from the previous season since 2001-02 when it won its 11th victory (the 2000-01 team was 10-18), also in Game No. 17.

The quickest turnaround from one year to the next in school history took just two games. The 1941-42 team went 1-11 and the following year the Pack had victory No 2 in its second game. The 1935-36 team needed just three games to beat the 1934-35 team (2-12) in the win column.

“I was Mr. Get It Done,” the Nevada Wolf Pack sophomore guard said recently. “I was a scorer in high school. I shot all the shots.”

Defense was, well, something his teammates took care of while he waited for them to pass him the ball.

“Did I play defense?” Evans said. “No. Maybe a little bit. But not really.”

That all changed in the summer of 2009, after he graduated from Leuzinger High and was playing in a summer tournament in Southern California.

“That’s when I felt like I had to learn how to play defense,” Evans remembered. “Paul George (now with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers) gave me buckets. I was fresh out of high school and he was at Fresno State.

“Yeah, that was the day it all changed for me. I remember that. I just said, ‘This is what I’m going to have to guard in college?’”

George was Mr. Get It Done’s welcome to big-time college basketball.

“He was remarkable,” Evans said, shaking his head. “He was giving me, wow, I don’t even want to talk about that.”

Evans averaged 15.3 points a game his senior year for the Leuzinger Olympians. The school, which has produced, among others, former major league baseball star George Foster, football cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha and basketball point guard Russell Westbrook, got its unique nickname because it opened about the same time the 1932 Summer Olympics were being held in Los Angeles.

And if the school was handing out gold medals along wit diplomas, Evans would have certainly gotten one after the 2009-09 season. Mr. Get It Done truly gave an Olympian effort most nights, averaging 1.6 assists, 1.5 blocks, 7.4 rebounds and 1.9 steals a game to go along with those 15.3 points. He had 29 points and 14 rebounds in a 70-67 win over Taft on Dec. 5, 2008. He had 26 in a 76-70 win over Ocean View a week later. A week after that he had 16 points and 13 boards against Long Beach Poly.

At 6-foot-7, 180 pounds in high school, college recruiting services began comparing him to former UNLV and NBA star Stacey Augmon, one of the most versatile players in college basketball and throughout his 15-year career in the NBA which ended in 2006.

“When we recruited (Evans), we looked at him as a Mo Charlo, Jermaine Washington type,” Pack coach David Carter said, referring to a pair of underrated do-it-all former Pack stars of the NCAA Tournament years from 2004-07. “Those types of guys are very important. They don’t always lead you in scoring or rebounding but they have a lot of stats across the board. He rebounds, blocks shots, shoots free throws and gets some points. He can play two or three positions.”

Evans, who sat out the 2009-10 season, has become Mr. Do The Dirty Work for the Wolf Pack the past two seasons. As a red-shirt freshman a year ago, the then 6-8, 187-pound, long-armed Evans averaged 4.9 points and 3.5 rebounds in 31 games and 20 starts for the 13-19 Wolf Pack.

“Last year his body, just being physically weak, wasn’t really able to maintain a 32-game season,” Carter said.

Last year, for Evans, was one huge Paul George moment.

Over his final six games and 127 minutes combined in 2010-11, Evans scored a mere 21 total points with three steals, two blocks and two assists. In two of those games, in 31 minutes combined against Idaho and New Mexico State, he failed to score a single point.
“I think he broke down as the year went along,“ Carter said.

George taught Evans the importance of defense. His freshman year taught him the value of some extra muscle. Evans went back home to Southern Cal this past summer and put on 20 pounds of basketball toughness.

“Hard work pays off,” he said.

Mr. Get It Done is getting it done at both ends of the floor this year. He is averaging 6.9 points and 5.1 rebounds. He has already surpassed his numbers of last year in assists (18 this year compared to 10 last year), blocks (14-9) and steals (17-12) in 132 fewer minutes.

“He’s improved his game all over,” senior Dario Hunt said. “His shooting, his offense, his rebounding, his defense. Being put in the fire his freshman year was a really good thing for him because he learned right away what it takes. He’s been able to develop faster than he would if he was just sitting and watching the games. There are a lot of little things you have to learn in this game that you can only learn by playing. And he did a great job of improving his game and working on those things in the off-season.”

“That was me taking the initiative,” said Evans of his decision to add muscle and work on his game this summer. “It’s working out well. I don’t see myself falling off as much as I did my freshman year. I’m able to bang with some of the bigger dudes now.”

Evans, who seemingly has a wingspan that allows him to touch Lawlor Events Center and Mackay Stadium at the same time, started the season by averaging 8.5 rebounds a game over the first four games. He’s had seven or more rebounds in a game seven times this year after doing it just three times all last season.

“He’s always been a good rebounder,” Carter said. “That was one of the things we liked about him from the start. But the added weight has made him an even better rebounder and defender.”

Evans just might be the Pack’s best defensive player since Lyndale Burleson of a few years ago. He’s definitely come a long way since that summer day when 2009 when George opened his eyes.

“If my man doesn’t score it brings fire to myself,” Evans said, breaking out into a smile. “It makes me want to move forward and keep pushing.”

“He’s probably our most improved player up to this point,” Carter said. “He can sustain what he does longer now because he’s stronger. Last year he got bumped around a lot. This year he moves people around.”

The new and improved and stronger Evans started out fast this season, averaging 8.5 points and 6.8 rebounds a game over the first six games. He was very aggressive at both ends of the floor, taking an average of 6.7 shots a game (3.2 threes) with a combined 10 free throws, five assists and five steals.

But then he hit a lull over the next four games against Bradley, Washington, Arizona State and Montana. He seemed to disappear on the offensive end, averaging just 2.8 points as he took just an average of two shots a game.

“We need him to look for his shot because he is a good shooter,“ Carter said.

The Montana game, when he didn’t take a shot or score in 16 minutes, seemed to be Evans’ wakeup call. In the eight games since, he has averaged 7.9 points and seven shots (2.8 threes) a game. Against San Jose State on Jan. 12, he drained 5-of-6 threes and scored a team-high 19 points and also led the Pack with seven rebounds.

“It was good to see him make some 3-pointers,” said Carter, whose 15-3 Wolf Pack will put its 12-game winning streak on the line Saturday night (7:05 p.m.) against Fresno State at Lawlor Events Center. “He’s a good 3-point shooter. We always talk to him about being ready to shoot a three because he’s a guy (opposing teams) seem to forget about. We’d like to see him look for his shot more, especially early in games.”

Evans, though, will never be about statistics. Mr. Get It Done is now, simply, Mr. Get a W.

“I just like to win,” he said. “Winning is the most important thing. We’re all going to shine at one point or another. So I’m not really tripping on who gets the love or whatever.”

The points, he said, will come if that‘s what the team needs. With two more seasons of eligibility remaining after this year, he’s clearly not finished improving his game.

“The longer I’m here the more my points and average will go up,” he said. “I’m not really worried about that. I can have zero points the rest of the season. If we win, I‘m satisfied. I‘m going to do the little things, playing defense, locking down my player, rebounding. Those are my stats right there. That’s cool with me.”

“We came out a little lackadaisical,” junior guard Malik Story said.

“We didn’t come out too ready to play,” senior center Dario Hunt added.

“They came out with high energy and we did not,” senior forward Olek Czyz said.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The Nevada Wolf Pack, now 15-3, never trailed over the final 36 minutes and cruised to an 81-69 victory over the Nebraska Omaha Mavericks for its 12th victory in a row.

“In the second half we picked it up,” Story said.

Nebraska Omaha (7-13), a team in the process of moving from Division II to Division I next season, has now lost 11 of 12 games this season against Division I teams. The Mavericks, though, took an 8-4 lead less than three minutes into the game against the unenthused Wolf Pack.

“Our guys were standing around too much,” coach David Carter said. “We were kind of walking through our offense. They (Omaha) were playing a sagging defense and weren’t allowing us to cut and we kind of bought into that and were playing way too slow offensively.”

Carter said he wasn’t surprised by his team’s lack of intensity.

“I kind of knew this was going to happen,” Carter said. “It’s hard to go from a conference game (the Pack is 4-0 in the Western Athletic Conference) to a non-conference game and expect the energy to be the same.”

The energy wasn’t the same. But the result — a victory — was very familiar to the Pack. The Pack has now won 15 of its last 16 games.

“It’s still a game that we had to win,” said Hunt , who had 14 points and 11 rebounds. “They all matter. We just needed to do a better job of coming out ready to go.”

The Pack, winners of 10 of 11 games this season at home, had just enough energy at just the right times to avoid an embarrassing upset.

The Wolf Pack, playing in front of just 3,407 fans, went on a 10-0 run to take a 14-8 lead with 14:39 left in the first half thanks to 3-pointers from Deonte Burton and Jerry Evans. The lead reached 10 (26-16) on a jumper by Czyz with 9:28 left in the half.

But the Mavericks wouldn’t go away easily. They pulled into a tie at 35-35 on a jumper by C.J. Carter with 1:43 left in the half before the Wolf Pack took a 39-35 lead at the intermission.

“They were playing up to the level of their competition,” said Czyz, who finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds. “Teams like that come into our house, see Nevada, and they pick up the intensity.”

That’s exactly what Carter told his team to do at halftime.

“I wasn’t worried,” Carter said. “I just wanted them to find more energy. It was all about the players. We just needed to play with more energy.”

It took a while for that second half energy to kick in. Omaha’s Carter drained a 3-pointer to cut the Pack’s lead to just 49-47 with 14:20 to play.

Enter Nevada energy.

The Pack went on a 12-0 run over the next four minutes to take a 61-47 lead. Story supplied most of the energy, scoring 10 of the 12 points in the run, including a pair of 3-pointers.

“You never want to give a team life like that,” said Story of the Pack’s slim 49-47 lead. “At that point we just wanted to put it on them.”

The Wolf Pack led by at least nine points the rest of the way. Another Story 3-pointer (he scored a game-high 20 points) gave the Pack a 64-49 lead with 8:21 to play and a lay-up by Hunt put the Pack up 76-61 with 2:51 left.

“I felt I let my teammates down in the first half,” said Story, who had seven points in the first 20 minutes. “I was playing too laid back on offense instead of being aggressive.”

Alex Welhouse cut the Pack’s lead to 76-67 with a 3-pointer with 2:24 to go. But four free throws by Patrick Nyeko down the stretch were enough to secure the Pack victory.

“We just started to play a lot faster on offense,” Story said. “And once we did that we got into our rhythm and they were scrambling a bit and that was to our advantage.”

The Wolf Pack will return to WAC play Saturday night at Lawlor against Fresno State. Carter isn’t worried that the non-league Omaha game will hurt the Pack’s WAC rhythm.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “The kids know Fresno State is going to come in here and play hard. They know it is a WAC game.”

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Photos by Silver and Blue Sports photographer Mark Rauh

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