By JOE SANTORO
Special to the Nevada Appeal
The time has come for the Nevada men's basketball team to proudly plant its flag on friendly soil, reinforce the walls of its silver and blue fort, brace itself for battle and protect its home turf.
"We have to take care of business at home," freshman Luke Babbitt said as the Wolf Pack prepared to open a pivotal three-game Western Athletic Conference home stand Thursday (7:05 p.m.) against Boise State.
The Pack, which will also host Fresno State on Saturday and Hawaii on Jan. 22 at Lawlor Events Center, would normally be overflowing with confidence anticipating three consecutive games of home cooking. This is a team, after all, that has won 20 of its last 22 WAC home games and 42 of its last 50 games overall up on North Virginia Street.
All of that, though, is ancient history. Recent history tells us the Pack is 0-1 at home in WAC games thanks to a stunning 78-73 loss to the Idaho Vandals on Jan. 3. This team has also already lost more home games this year (four) than it did all of last year (three). This Pack team is also the first since the 2000-01 team to lose as many as two home games in row on two separate occasions.
That's why home, according to the state song, not only means Nevada to this Wolf Pack basketball team right now. It also means you better start piling up the victories against WAC opponents.
"You always want to defend your home court," said Babbitt, who is coming off his first WAC Player of the Week award. "If we don't, then last week's (road) sweep doesn't mean a lot."
Ahh, yes, the good news.
The Pack, 9-7 overall and 2-1 in the WAC, all but wiped away the ugly aftertaste of the Idaho loss out of its mouth by beating New Mexico State, 79-71, a week ago at Las Cruces, N.M., and Louisiana Tech, 67-64, last Saturday on a last-second 3-pointer by Babbitt, in Ruston, La.
"Those two wins have given us a lot of confidence," guard Brandon Fields said. "We stayed focused as a team, we passed the ball as a team, we defended as a team. I really think we've matured a lot as a team."
Idaho turned out to be one beneficial rude slap in the face for the Pack.
"It was an eye-opener for us," Fields said. "We're a young team. We (now) know that we have to be focused every single night and not take any opponent for granted."
"We lost a home game to a team that everybody in our locker room thought we should have beaten," Pack coach Mark Fox said.
Fox admitted this week that the schedule " the Pack played top-ranked North Carolina just three nights before the Idaho game " might have had something to do with the disappointing WAC-opening loss.
"I take the blame for the Idaho game," Fox said. "Looking back on it, I shouldn't have scheduled that (North Carolina) game so close to the Idaho game. We definitely had an emotional hangover against Idaho. Take nothing away from Idaho but we came out flat and with no energy."
The schedule, it turns out, might have also done the Pack a favor last week. Going on the road after the Idaho loss gave the young team a chance to close its ranks, lick its wounds, huddle together and recapture its focus.
"Maybe it was just a coincidence," Fields said. "But I guess it's easy for people to get more focused on the road."
Fox, though, reminded everyone that two wins on the road won't miraculously cure all that ails his young basketball team that is learning on the job this season.
"Look, it's a long season," said Fox, who is three victories away from tying Sonny Allen (114 career wins) for third place on the Pack career coaching list. "Just because we swept (two games on the road) doesn't mean we've accomplished anything yet. We didn't make drastic changes after that (Idaho) game. We just came out with more focus and played with better energy and had better results because of it."
All of that focus and energy will be needed tonight against Boise State. The Broncos (12-3, 3-0), after all, were the only WAC team to come to Lawlor Events Center last season and beat the Pack (95-80 on Jan. 19, 2008). Boise, which stunned Nevada in the WAC tournament in Reno in 2005, also last year became the first WAC team to beat the Pack twice in the same season since Tulsa in 2002-03.
"I'm not going to say this is a revenge game," Fields said, recalling the Pack's 0-2 record against Boise last season. "But winning this game will be good for our confidence as a team."
The sting out of losing at home to Idaho has also been diminished by the way most of the WAC teams played at home last week. After one week of conference play, WAC home teams are a shocking 5-10 in league play. The last two seasons, by comparison, WAC teams were a combined 97-47 (.674 winning percentage) in home league games. That's why a home WAC loss to Idaho is no reason to push your Pack panic button just yet.
"There is lots of parity in our league this year," Fox said. "That's why you are not going to see a lot of discrepancy between the home and road records. It's important to win in both places."