RENO - The Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball team always enjoys being at home. The Pack, though, might enjoy it this week a little more than usual.
"It was a little scary," smiled freshman Jerry Evans of the Wolf Pack's flight home from Hawaii early Tuesday morning. "My heart dropped just a bit."
The Wolf Pack, on a connecting flight from Phoenix, got within seconds of a landing at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The landing, though, was aborted because of high winds and the Pack found itself on its way to a five-hour impromptu stay in Las Vegas before finally getting back home to Reno.
"I'm scared of flying already," sophomore Malik Story said. "I don't like that feeling of my stomach in my head."
Pack coach David Carter missed all of the fun. Carter flew with his team from Hawaii to Phoenix and then boarded a different flight because he went off on a recruiting trip.
"I'm glad I wasn't on that flight," smiled Carter, of the Pack's Phoenix-to-Reno-to-Las Vegas-and-back-again-to-Reno journey. "That's the advantage of being the head coach."
It was a road trip the Pack won't soon forget.
"After we pulled up like that I was kind of screaming on the plane," Story said. "We came down and flew back up. I'm just glad to be here."
Here is Lawlor Events Center where the Wolf Pack (10-15) will host the UC Irvine Anteaters (11-16) on Saturday afternoon (2:05 p.m.) in an ESPN BracketBusters game. The game, though, will not be televised by the ESPN network.
"Coming home is always great," said Story, whose 29 points and six assists led the Wolf Pack to an emotional 84-76 overtime victory at San Jose State last Saturday. "We get to sleep in our own bed, stay on our own schedule."
And stay out of airports for a while.
"I just love being at home in Reno, period," Story said.
The Pack, which will wrap up its home season with games against Idaho on Feb. 24 and Boise State on Feb. 26 at Lawlor, is 8-3 at home this year and 2-12 on the road. The last time the Pack was at home (Feb. 5) they whipped San Jose State 89-69 to clinch their 11th consecutive season with a winning record at home.
"I've always said teams are 10 points better at home than they are on the road," Carter said.
That was certainly true Monday night in a 69-67 overtime loss at Hawaii, a team the Pack destroyed 86-69 in Reno just six weeks earlier (Dec. 31).
"They have a lot of confidence at home," said Carter of Hawaii. "They play harder, they are more physical. They shoot the ball better. They are a different team on the island."
And the Pack, it seems, always can't wait to get back to the mainland.
"It was a tough loss," Evans said. "But we got a split on the trip so it wasn't a total loss."
The Pack, over all, looks at its two-game swing to San Jose State and Hawaii as a very positive experience. They rallied in the final seconds to send the San Jose State game into overtime before winning and battled a tough Hawaii team at their place before losing in the extra period.
"That was just a hard-fought game and we came up a little short," junior center Dario Hunt said of the Hawaii loss.
"It was a good trip," Story said. "We're starting to fight on the road more. When we get down in a game, we're sticking with our game plan and we keep fighting. That was very positive to see."
Irvine, a former Wolf Pack foe in the Big West Conference in the 1990s, comes to Reno after a 75-51 loss in Stockton, Calif., to the Pacific Tigers. The Anteaters, currently eighth in the Big West at 4-9, have lost six of their last seven games.
"I like playing these (BracketBusters) games," Hunt said. "It's a good break from conference games."
The Pack has won its last six games against Irvine. The Pack beat Irvine, 77-68, in the last meeting between the two schools on Nov. 13, 2007.
"It's just nice to play somebody that doesn't know your plays," Story said, referring to the Pack's familiar foes in the Western Athletic Conference.
The Wolf Pack is 5-2 in BracketBusters games, 5-0 at home and 0-2 on the road. They lost at Missouri State (62-60) last year in the BracketBuster.
It was in a BracketBuster game in Reno in 2009 that Carter got his first taste of being the Pack's head coach. He engineered a 71-70 come-from-behind victory over Virginia Commonwealth after head coach Mark Fox was ejected from the game in the second half.
"It's almost like a postseason game because you don't know who you're going to play until they pick the game," said Carter, referring to the BracketBusters' schedule announcement (Jan. 31) just two weeks ago. "I like it. It gives you another chance at a win and it's another test to see how good you are."
As part of the BracketBuster format, the Pack must play at Irvine in either of the next two seasons.
"That will be a good game for us because we have a lot of kids on our team from Southern California," said Carter, who is from Los Angeles himself.
Irvine, Carter said, will try to run the Pack out of its own gym.
"They are very quick with a four-guard, one-big offense," Carter said. "They like to spread you out, shoot a lot of threes. We'll have a size advantage but they'll have a quickness advantage. It will be a challenge for us."