Nevada guard Grant Sherfield, left, and Kansas' Remy Martin chase a loose ball during their game Dec. 29, 2021, in Lawrence, Kan.
Charlie Riedel/AP
The Nevada Wolf Pack played a role in making the Kansas Jayhawks the men’s college basketball champions this week. OK, yes, it was a small part. A very small part. But this year’s Jayhawks are just the fourth team to play the Wolf Pack in the same season they won a national championship.
The first three were the 1966 Texas-El Paso Miners coached by Don Haskins, the 2004 Connecticut Huskies coached by Jim Calhoun and the 2009 North Carolina Tar Heels coached by Roy Williams. The Wolf Pack, by the way, is now 0-4 against national champions, losing to Texas-El Paso (86-49), Connecticut (93-79), North Carolina (84-61) and Kansas (88-61).
The Kansas game wasn’t even on the Pack schedule heading into this past season. The two programs scheduled the game for Dec. 29, 2021 at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas, roughly 48 hours before tip off. The Pack’s game against Texas-El Paso on Dec. 22, 1965 also took place only because the Pack beat Creighton and Texas El-Paso beat South Dakota in the semifinals of the Mississippi Valley Cage Classic at Rock Island, Ill. The game against North Carolina was played before 10,526 fans at Lawlor Events Center on New Year’s Eve in 2008 and the game at Storrs, Connecticut on Nov. 19, 2003 attracted 10,167 fans.
Luke Babbitt’s 22 points against North Carolina and Kirk Snyder’s 22 against Connecticut are the most points ever scored by a Pack player against an eventual national champion. Grant Sherfield and Desmond Cambridge each led the Pack with 16 points against Kansas while the Pack’s Larry Moore had 14 against Texas-El Paso.
•••
The Wolf Pack became part of college basketball history by playing Texas El-Paso in December 1965. That Miners team, after all, became the first in college basketball to win a national championship with an all-black starting lineup. The Miners’ starters in their 72-65 championship victory over Kentucky at College Park, Maryland, were Bobby Joe Hill, Willie Cager, Willie Worsley, Orsten Artis and David Lattin. All five played 30 or more minutes and the only players to come off the Miners’ bench against Kentucky were also black (Nevil Shed and Harry Flournoy).
The Wolf Pack only trailed the Miners 29-22 at halftime on Dec. 22, 1965 in front of an estimated crowd of 3,600. Texas-El Paso, though, outscored Nevada 57-27 in the second half as Artis finished with 18 points, Hill had 15 and Worsley had 14. The Wolf Pack got to the Mississippi Valley Cage Classic title game at the Rock Island Fieldhouse against the Miners by shocking Creighton 97-96 the night before in two overtimes. The Pack’s Nap Montgomery scored 36 points, including a 20-foot jumper to win the game at the buzzer. The Pack was down 20 (66-46) with just nine minutes left in regulation and outscored the Blue Jays 29-9 the rest of the way to force overtime.
•••
If Tiger Woods wins the Masters this weekend it will be considered one of the most amazing accomplishments in the history of sports. Anything Tigers does, after all, like Lebron James and Tom Brady, is always considered one of the most amazing events of human civilization.
If Woods wins this weekend it will, without question, be a remarkable feat. It was just 14 months ago, after all, that a car accident was feared to end his career.
But a little perspective is needed here before social media goes crazy this weekend. Tiger just won the Masters three years ago. He is 46, not 66. Jack Nicklaus was 46 when he won the Masters in 1986. Ben Hogan survived a near-fatal car accident in February 1949 and recovered to win the Masters in 1951 and 1953.
Tiger can win the Masters this weekend and he can miss the cut. At least now we have a reason to watch golf again.
•••
Northern Nevada helped turn Tiger Woods into one of the greatest golfers in the history of the sport. Yes, it was in a small way. A very small way. But a 17-year-old Tiger played in the Lake Tahoe Classic at Genoa Lakes in September 1993, finishing sixth in a two-day junior golf event.
“I didn’t have the focus at all,” Woods said after the tournament. “I think I’ve outgrown junior golf. I can’t get up for an event. In amateur golf I’m up for every round, every shot. Here (at Genoa Lakes) I was kind of lackadaisical. And that’s just not me.”
Woods was already a celebrity in 1993 when he got off his plane in Reno.
“Sometimes the attention is unexpected,” he said as he tried to get a cab to take him to his Reno hotel. “At a tournament you expect it. But I was just at Magic Mountain (in Southern California) and three people asked me for my autograph. I’m at Magic Mountain, wearing a tank top and shorts and wearing my hat backward. I thought nobody would recognize me.”
•••
Is anyone excited about the start of the rebirth of the United States Football League next weekend? The new USFL, which originally played from 1982-85 and produced numerous future NFL players, will play a 10-game schedule for eight teams starting April 16 and 17.
But, as is the norm with upstart leagues that try to take advantage of our nation’s obsession with football, the league is filled with goofy rules that challenge its credibility right from the start. First of all, every game will be played in Birmingham, Ala., even though the teams will be called the Houston Gamblers, Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, New Orleans Breakers, Philadelphia Stars, Pittsburgh Maulers, Tampa Bay Bandits and, of course, Birmingham Stallions.
All of the games will be on television (Fox, USA, Peacock, NBC) and none of the players are known outside their families and Twitter followers. Two forward passes behind the line of scrimmage are legal, you can go for a 3-point conversion from the 10-yard line, kickoffs will take place from the 25-yard line and each team gets the ball at the 2-yard line in overtime. Does anybody like football this much?
•••
There will, however, be two names on USFL rosters this spring and summer that will be somewhat familiar to Wolf Pack fans. Former Wolf Pack linebacker Gabe Sewell (Philadelphia Stars) and kicker Ramiz Ahmed (Pittsburgh Maulers) should see considerable playing time this season.
Sewell was with the Wolf Pack from 2015-19 and Ahmed was in Northern Nevada in 2017 and 2018. Ahmed, who graduated from Bishop Gorman High and also was a member of the UNLV Rebels and Arizona State Sun Devils before coming to the Pack, only kicked off in 2017. The next year, though, he was 40-of-45 on extra points and 15-of-20 on field goals for 85 points for the 2018 Pack.
Sewell, who was recruited to Nevada by head coach Brian Polian, had 282 tackles in his Pack career, including a team-high 92 his junior year in 2018. Sewell’s Pro Day in the spring of 2020 was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic so he participated in the Pro Days at both Oregon and Nevada in 2021. His connection to Oregon was his brother Penei, who played at Oregon and is now an offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions, and his brother Noah, a current Oregon linebacker.
•••
One of the most intriguing assistant coach hires this off-season by Pack head football coach Ken Wilson is offensive line coach Jeff Nady. Nady, a Douglas High graduate, was a member of the Nevada program from 2008-12 and played for former head coach Chris Ault (Wilson was a Pack linebacker coach at the time).
Nady, one of the toughest, talented, most physical and hardest working Pack offensive lineman in recent memory, helped build Ault’s Pistol offense into a national phenomenon a decade ago. Nady played for line coaches Chris Klenakis and Cameron Norcross at Nevada. If anyone can return the Pack offensive line to its Union glory days, it is Nady.
Under Ault, the Union was built on a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners, put-the-Pack-on-our-backs standard of excellence that Nady will try to instill once again this season.
•••
It is difficult to see the Oakland A’s this season equaling the 86 victories of last season. The A’s, once again, gutted their roster of stars this off-season, dealing away Matt Olson, Matt Chapman and watching Starling Marte, Josh Harrison, Chris Bassitt, Mark Canha and Sean Manaea also leave town since the start of the 2021 season.
The A’s will likely wear out the flight paths between Oakland and Triple-A Las Vegas in an effort to piece together a roster all season long. Expect something along the lines of 68-72 wins this year in Oakland.
The Las Vegas Aviators, by the way, are hosting the Reno Aces this week and will play in Reno May 17-22 and Aug. 30 - Sept. 4. So you don’t have to go to Oakland to see the Oakland A’s.
•••
The San Francisco Giants also will likely struggle to match their win total of a year ago. The Giants became one of the biggest surprises in baseball history last year, turning a team that should have struggled to finish .500 and somehow grinding out 107 wins and a National League West title.
Was last year a giant fluke? Will the Giants finish a whole lot closer to .500 this year than the 107-win stunner of a year ago? Well, starting pitchers Kevin Gausman and Johnny Cueto are gone as are infielder-outfielder Kris Bryant and catcher Buster Posey. But the Giants’ young talent will be a year older and help came to town this off-season in the form of pitchers Carlos Rodon and Alex Cobb and outfielder Joc Pederson. There’s no reason why the Giants can’t win 90 games and earn a wild card spot this year.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment