Spartans couldn't be better for Pack

RENO " Mark Fox and the Nevada Wolf Pack basketball team are right where they want to be.

"We completely went into this season with our eyes open," the Pack coach said this week. "We knew this would be the youngest team we've ever had and we knew there would be a lot of teachable moments in the public eye. But I told them they had to be tough to endure the process and I told them they could be a team that would peak late in the year."

Everything Fox told his young Wolf Pack team has come true so far, including the part about peaking late in the year. The Wolf Pack, winners of six of their last seven games, will open Western Athletic Conference tournament play tonight (6 p.m.) at Lawlor Events Center against the San Jose State Spartans.

"We've been able to respond to adversity and, hopefully, we'll continue to play our best basketball," Fox said.

The Wolf Pack, which has never met San Jose State in the postseason, couldn't have hand-picked a better opponent to get them past any opening-night jitters they might suffer in this WAC Tournament. The Wolf Pack has dominated the rivalry in recent years, winning 13 of its last 14 meetings with San Jose State. The last three victories have come by an average of 24 points, including 80-68 in San Jose on Feb. 12 and 89-66 at Lawlor just a week ago.

"We have to defend better if we want to beat them," San Jose State coach George Nessman said. "They got a lot of easy baskets against us."

The Wolf Pack (19-11) has simply shredded the Spartans (13-16) defense this year, shooting a combined 59 percent in its two easy victories. The Pack shot 62 percent in San Jose last month and 56 percent last week in Reno. This is the same Wolf Pack team that shot 50 percent or better in just three of its other 28 games.

"We've played well offensively against them," Fox said. "We shot well against their zone in the first game so they came here and played mostly man and we scored well again."

Most everyone wearing Silver and Blue has enjoyed success against the Spartans on the offensive end this year.

Joey Shaw, who is expected to play tonight after missing last Saturday's game at Boise with a sore knee, came off the bench to score 23 points in the first meeting. Brandon Fields came off the bench in the rematch last week to score 20.

Luke Babbitt has averaged 16 points a game against San Jose, Malik Cooke has averaged 13.0 and Armon Johnson 12.5. Dario Hunt has made 5-of-8 shots against the Spartans, Lyndale Burleson is 4-of-8 and Ahyaro Phillips is 4-of-6.

The Pack scored 80 or more points in just three of its 16 WAC games this year. Two of those three games came against San Jose State.

"When Nevada scores, they've been real successful," Nessman said. "When they are up over 70 points they are hard to beat."

The Pack, which has averaged 76 points in each of its 13 victories over San Jose State since the start of the 2002-03 season, is 6-0 when it scores 80 or more points this year and 12-2 when it gets to at least 70.

"We've been very unselfish lately on offense," said Fox, who led the Pack to the WAC Tournament title in 2006 in Reno. "Our players now understand how to play together. At the beginning of the year they realized that we lost Marcellus Kemp and JaVale McGee off last year's team. We lost a lot of offense so some of our guys felt the need to score more. But as the year progressed they've become much more patient and have let the game come to them."

The Spartans also have talent on offense. C.J. Webster, a 6-foot-9 junior, scored 22 points against the Wolf Pack last week and is averaging 12 points a game. Guard Adrian Oliver is averaging 17.4 points this year and Tim Pierce is at 11.9.

Oliver, though, was just 1-of-11 from the field against the Pack last week and scored three points.

"The one thing we talked about was not letting him catch the ball in his sweet spots and not to allow him to get comfortable on the floor," Fox said. "So we were able to throw different types of bodies against him the whole game and never let him get comfortable."

San Jose State did pull down 21 offensive rebounds (Webster had eight) against the Wolf Pack last week, giving Fox cause for concern.

"That's certainly an area we'll have to clean up this week," Fox said.

A victory over San Jose State will give the Pack four consecutive seasons with three victories against one opponent. The Pack beat New Mexico State three times in 2005-06, Idaho in 2006-07 and Fresno State last year.

"If we remain consistent on offense, clean up our rebounding a little bit and keep Adrian (Oliver) in check, we'll have a good chance to be successful," Fox said.