Kudos to Pack softball

By Darrell Moody

Appeal Sports Editor

Some thoughts on a rainy February afternoon.

• Hats off to the Nevada softball team, which received votes in two different polls after its performances in Southern California and Arizona the past two weekends.

In a span of two weeks, Nevada has knocked off No. 1 Arizona 1-0, No. 5 Cal-State Fullerton and No. 25 Oregon State. The Pack nearly knocked off No. 5 Oklahoma, losing 1-0 on a solo homer late in the game.

The one thing I find disconcerting is that Nevada's team will be home for just seven dates this year, which is far too few.

Why build a brand-new field if you aren't going to play on it? And, I think it was a mistake not to have all-weather turf. This is Northern Nevada, and the weather is crappy when spring sports get under way. If it turns out to be a money thing, I'll get off my soap box.

It would be easy for the Pack to host a four-team tournament on campus. You just need enough light to play three games a day.

With the new all-weather fields opening in Sparks soon, I'd love to see the Pack host a big college tournament there. I think it would be well received, especially when you consider that Nevada has several local players on its roster, including Brittany Puzey, Sarah Hunt and Brit Murdock.

• I'm scratching my head over ESPN Radio's decision to broadcast just the first game of Saturday conference double-headers at Peccole Park.

According to Nevada personnel, the station is doing this in hopes that fans will come out for the second game of the baseball double-header.

That makes no sense, especially when the station is broadcasting both games when the team is on the road. If you're going to broadcast the games, broadcast the games - all of them.

If people want to be there, then people will be there. I don't think hearing the first-game broadcast is going to send people scurrying to get their car keys and drive to Peccole for the second game. Some people like baseball on the radio. Baseball is a great radio game.

• Nevada coach Mark Fox made a good point recently when he stressed that there are more Division I basketball teams, but that the post-season opportunities hadn't expanded.

There are more than 300 Division I team, but until this year, only 96 teams qualified for post-season (64 in NCAA, 32 in NIT). With the addition of the College Basketball Invitational (16 teams), there will now be 112 teams involved in post-season play.

Certainly the top four WAC teams are good enough to be in the top 112, but we'll see.

Should the NCAA Tournament be expanded? I'd love to know what our readers think. I'm not saying it should get to 100 or anything like that, but I would love to see them add seven teams and bring it up to 72.

Send me an e-mail pro and con about expanding March Madness.

• San Jose State coach George Nessman inherited what many think was a bad job when he took over the Spartans' program two-plus years ago.

I like Nessman and not just because he taught and coached at my alma mater, De La Salle. Nessman is a teacher and a good one. San Jose State has a gem, and I hope it holds onto him for a long time.

Nessman has the Spartans at 12-13 overall and 4-8 in the WAC heading into this weekend's BracketBuster game at UOP. That's a tough draw for the Spartans because it's the second straight year where they have played a team at the top or near the top of their conference while being a second-tier team themselves.

Nessman has a chance to get the Spartans to 14 or 15 wins, and that would be a nice season. It's been at least six years since SJSU won 14 games.

He has guided the team to a couple of big wins this year - Nevada and Utah State - and Bay Area fans should take note of that. It hasn't shown much in attendance, but that's to be expected when you are competing against pro teams and Cal and Stanford for the entertainment dollar.

It's a shame, though, the students don't come out a little more often. A big crowd can help a team and influence a game. I've seen it happen many a time.

• Certainly Nick Fazekas has learned about the business side of the NBA the hard way after getting waived earlier this week by the Dallas Mavericks.

The only plus is that he had a guaranteed contract, which I'm assuming the Mavericks are eating, so he'll be making some money while he looks for new work either in the United States or in Europe.

Both he and Ramon Sessions have had tough initial seasons. Sessions, for those of you who don't follow Nevada news much, broke his hand the first day of practice with Milwaukee after he was called up from the D-League.