Babbitt, Fields lead Wolf Pack to win over Hawaii

JOE SANTORO

Special to the Nevada Appeal

The Wolf Pack men's basketball team is just teasing the rest of the Western Athletic Conference.

"We haven't come close to playing as well as we can as a team," freshman Luke Babbitt said after the Pack's 74-63 victory over the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors Thursday at Lawlor Events Center.

The victory completed a perfect 3-0 WAC home stand over Boise State, Fresno State and Hawaii and gives the Pack its first five-game winning streak since December 2007. But don't let the fancy numbers fool you. The Wolf Pack, now 12-7 overall and 5-1 in the WAC, is far from satisfied.

"We have so much more room to grow," Pack coach Mark Fox said. "It's important to be realistic. And you don't get pats on the back for doing what you are supposed to do. We still think our best basketball is in front of us."

The Pack's best basketball showed up early against Hawaii. Babbitt came out on fire and scored eight points in the first two minutes as the Pack opened up a quick 8-0 lead. Armon Johnson hit his first 3-pointer in over a month (Dec. 20 at Cal-Berkeley) after missing 17 in a row over seven games as the Pack built a 15-4 lead just five minutes into the game.

"They got too confident in their offense," Hawaii coach Bob Nash said.

The Pack cruised to a 37-20 halftime lead and, it seemed, everyone got into the act. Ray Kraemer even came off the bench to score seven points late in the opening half in just three minutes.

"We did some things real well in the first half," Fox said.

The Pack, though, then spent the entire second half teasing the Rainbow Warriors and the Lawlor crowd of 7,247.

"There is a lot of things that we can learn from this game," Fox said.

The Pack came out of the halftime locker room and promptly went scoreless for the first four minutes of the second half. A layup by Dario Hunt, though, gave the Pack a comfortable 45-25 lead with 13:50 to go. Just six minutes later, however, Hawaii closed to within 52-46 on a 3-pointer by Kareem Nitoto.

"It was just a lack of focus, really," said Babbitt, who tied teammate Brandon Fields with a game-high 19 points. "We need to learn how to put teams away."

Hawaii went with a smaller lineup and started to press the Pack.

"We got into a situation where we needed to get some points on the board and then speed Nevada up," Nash said.

"They caught us off-guard by pressing us," Fields said.

"We didn't respond to the press well at all and that was disappointing," Fox said. "We eventually settled down but that's something we should have handled better, especially with our experienced backcourt."

The Pack, though, survived the Hawaii press and put the game away down the stretch. Malik Cooke, who did a little of everything with 12 points, 10 rebounds and four steals, had back-to-back layups to give the Pack a 60-50 lead with 5:37 to play.

Johnson, who struggled most of the game and finished with just five points, four assists and three turnovers, did come up with a big jumper in the lane for a 65-52 lead with 3:45 to go.

Lasha Parghalava, who had to endure boos from the crowd every time he touched the ball after he planted a hard foul on Cooke in the first half, connected for a 3-pointer to cut the Pack's lead to 65-57 with three minutes left. Babbitt, though, completed a 3-point play with a basket inside and a free throw and fed Fields for a dunk for a 70-59 lead with a minute to go.

"We're certainly not pleased with the way we played in the second half," Fox said. "But we did reach our objective in the end."

There were a lot of positives to build on despite the second-half struggles. The Pack's 11 steals were its most since they had 12 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Dec. 17, they have now outrebounded eight opponents in a row (they had a 35-28 edge on the glass against Hawaii) and they continued to be very efficient from the free throw line, making 26-of-32 (81.3 percent).

The biggest positive, like Fox said, is that they reached their objective in the end and completed the sweep of the three-game WAC home stand. The Pack remains in second place in the WAC standings behind Utah State (18-1, 6-0) with a date against the Aggies on the road next on the schedule on Jan. 29.

"They (the Wolf Pack) are fried mentally," Fox said of his weary team. "We're going to give them two days off so that they can get away from me and get away from each other. I just thought we had a tired team tonight (against Hawaii). We can use the time off."