Nevada’s Desmond Cambridge guards Boise State’s Derrick Alston during their Feb. 5 game in Reno. The teams face each other Thursday in the Mountain West tournament. (Photo: University of Nevada)
The Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball team couldn’t have picked a better time to play the Boise State Broncos. The Broncos, the Wolf Pack’s first opponent in the Mountain West tournament Thursday (2:30 p.m.) at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center, are hurting both physically and mentally. Abu Kigab, the Broncos’ second-leading scorer (11.8 points a game), is a 6-foot-7 former Oregon Duck with an injured shoulder and might not play. Boise State will also take a three-game losing streak to Las Vegas, thanks to a disturbing 67-64 loss to Fresno State last week after leading 63-54 with five minutes to go. Boise started the season 13-1 and won 13 games in a row but has since dropped six of 11. “It feels devastating,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said after the loss to Fresno State. “My guys are devastated.”
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The Wolf Pack also hasn’t played well lately. After a bout with COVID in the middle of February, which forced the cancelation of back-to-back series with San Jose State and Colorado State, the Pack has also struggled in its last three games. But the Wolf Pack did end its regular season last Friday night with an 85-82 win over Colorado State and knows it can beat the Broncos. The Pack, after all, swept a two-game series in early February at Lawlor Events Center, 74-72 and 73-62, over Boise State. The win over Colorado State, which came on a 3-pointer by Grant Sherfield with two seconds left, might have revitalized the Pack season. The loss to Fresno State might have demolished the Broncos’ season.
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Wolf Pack coach Steve Alford knows a thing or two about winning a Mountain West tournament. Alford won back-to-back Mountain West tournaments in 2012 and 2013 when he was coach at New Mexico. He then left for UCLA but the Lobos then won it again in 2014 under Alford assistant Craig Neal (now a Pack assistant). This will be Alford’s 13th conference tournament in Las Vegas. He was 8-4 in six Las Vegas Mountain West tournaments from 2008-13 while at New Mexico and 6-4 in five (2014-18) Pac-12 tournaments in Las Vegas while coach at UCLA, winning the title in 2014. And he lost his only tournament game last year as Pack coach. Alford was also 13-6 in eight Big Ten tournaments as coach at Iowa, winning the title in 2001 and 2006. That gives Alford a 27-15 record in 20 postseason conference tournaments with five championships. Leon Rice, now in his 11th year at Boise State, has never won a postseason conference tournament and has a record of 6-10.
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The Wolf Pack and Broncos have split four games in conference tournaments. The Wolf Pack won 79-67 in the 1985 Big Sky Conference tournament under coach Sonny Allen at Boise and in the 2019 Mountain West tournament, 77-69, in Las Vegas under coach Eric Musselman. Boise State shocked the Pack and coach Mark Fox in the Western Athletic Conference tournament in Reno in 2005, 73-72, and also beat the Pack and coach David Carter, 75-62 in the Mountain West postseason in Las Vegas in 2014.
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Musselman is now being called the “Mussiah” in Arkansas. Musselman’s Razorbacks are one of the hottest teams in the country, having won 11 games in a row. Arkansas finished second in the SEC behind Alabama this year with a 21-5 overall record and 13-4 in conference, is ranked eighth in both major national polls and is a lock to go to the NCAA tournament no matter what happens this week in the SEC tournament. Musselman is also a finalist for the Naismith National Coach of the Year and is now 151-51 (41-17 at Arkansas) as a college head coach in the six seasons since he took over the Pack program in 2015-16. He’s won 20-plus games in all six of his seasons and this will be his fourth NCAA tournament in six years. He just might be what Wolf Pack fans have suspected all along. The best coach in the nation.
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Musselman and Alford, of course, will always be compared in Nevada. The two were born a mere four days apart in November 1964. They were also born roughly just 300 miles apart, Alford near Indianapolis in Franklin, Indiana and Musselman near Cleveland in Ashland, Ohio. Both their fathers were basketball coaches and both never even imagined a life without the sport. And both are wonderful coaches and Wolf Pack athletic director Doug Knuth was smart enough to bring both of them to Nevada. It would be fitting if Alford’s Pack and Musselman’s Razorbacks met in Indianapolis later this month in the NCAA Tournament.
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Musselman won’t have to win the SEC tournament to get to Indianapolis but Alford will have to win the Mountain West tournament. Alford’s reward for beating Boise State will be a semifinal matchup Friday night against, more than likely, San Diego State. San Diego State is the Wolf Pack’s nemesis in the Mountain West tournament, having eliminated the Pack (and Musselman) in 2016, 2018 and 2019. The good news is that the Aztecs might be bored come Friday night. San Diego State, now 20-4, has likely already clinched a NCAA Tournament spot no matter what happens this week, though a loss to either San Jose State or Wyoming on Thursday might make the selection committee concerned. The Pack played San Diego State very closely in two losses in San Diego in early January, falling by just five and two points. The switch in venue to Las Vegas and the lack of motivation for the Aztecs might be enough for the Pack to get to the title game.
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The Mountain West announced its postseason awards on Tuesday and, well, there weren’t many surprises. The Wolf Pack’s Grant Sherfield was named the Newcomer of the Year and was named to the First Team All-Conference. The Pack’s Desmond Cambridge was named to the Third Team. No other Pack players, as expected, were honored. San Diego State’s Matt Mitchell was given the Player of the Year award simply because he was the team leader of the best team in the conference. Sherfield, the second Pack player to win the Newcomer award after Jalen Harris last year, was in the running for the Player of the Year award until a few weeks ago before the Pack got swept by Utah State. He is still the most valuable player in the conference to his team by far, no matter what the voters (the coaches) announced on Tuesday. He just might prove it this week.
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