Grades: Pack gets outplayed and exits MW Tournament

Grading the Nevada Wolf Pack’s 85-78 men’s basketball loss to the Colorado State Rams in the Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas on Thursday:

STARTERS

JAROD LUCAS: C

Lucas led the Wolf Pack with 18 points, but it looked like he was running on fumes for much of the second half. The veteran shooting guard played 39 minutes (injured reserve guard Hunter McIntosh missed the game) and missed his last five shots over the final 18 minutes.

Lucas started off well, scoring 12 points in the first half on 4-of-6 shooting with two threes. He went to the bench for 98 seconds midway through the first half and never left the floor the remainder of the game.

He made three of his first four shots (two threes), with his second 3-pointer cutting Colorado State’s lead to 17-15 with 8:34 to go in the first half. He then didn’t take another shot for almost the next four minutes and ended up missing six of his final eight shots of the game. He missed his final five 3-point attempts, finishing 2-of-7 from beyond the arc.

KENAN BLACKSHEAR: B

It took Blackshear a half of basketball to wake up, find his rhythm and make an impact on Thursday. The veteran point guard struggled in the first 20 minutes, scoring just three points (mainly because he took just two shots) while turning the ball over three times.

He played just 11 minutes in the first half despite the absence of backup point guard McIntosh. He was sent to the bench for the final 1:21 of the first half after his third turnover.

Blackshear in the second half, though, took over the Pack offense, scoring 13 points and going 5-of-7 from the floor and handing out four assists. He finished with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting, six rebounds and four assists.

He was brilliant over the final 9:38, scoring nine points with three assists. Those three assists came over a span of just 2:30 as Blackshear did his best to keep the Pack in the game. He scored six points in the final two minutes, rebounding his own missed free throw and converting the layup with 40 seconds to play to cut the deficit to 82-78.

NICK DAVIDSON: C

The 6-8 sophomore had a disjointed, inconsistent and rollercoaster evening with nine points, six rebounds, two blocks, two steals and two turnovers in his 26 minutes before fouling out with two minutes to play. Davidson had just two points in the first half, converting a layup 87 seconds into the game and then coming up empty the rest of the half.

But it was foul trouble that affected Davidson’s performance the most. He picked up two fouls less than two minutes apart, limiting him to just 74 seconds of playing time over the final 4:45 of the first half. He then picked up two fouls just seven seconds apart early in the second half that affected the Pack the rest of the game.

Those two quick fouls in the second half were pivotal in the Pack losing the game. With Davidson on the bench for nearly six minutes with four fouls, the Rams were able to increase their lead from just six (51-45) with 16:19 to play to a dozen (66-54) with 10:23 to play.

Davidson, to his credit, didn’t let those four fouls hinder his aggressiveness once he returned to the floor. He had a block, steal, assist and a pair of layups over a span of just three minutes to help the Pack cut the deficit to 74-67 with just under six minutes to play.

The Pack, though, then sent him back to the bench with 5:17 to go and Colorado State quickly took advantage of Davidson’s absence in the paint. They hit a jumper in the paint and a layup to bump their lead up to 78-69 with four minutes to go before Davidson returned to the floor.

TRE COLEMAN: C

Coleman basically vanished on Thursday with just six points, three rebounds, an assist, steal and turnover in 30 minutes. With McIntosh missing, Davidson battling foul trouble and Lucas and Blackshear each disappearing for a half, the Pack needed Coleman to step up and, well, that didn’t happen.

You can say Coleman’s true value to team is on defense and, normally, that would be true. But keep in mind the Pack allowed 85 points on 50 percent shooting so nobody in silver and blue played all that well on defense, either.

Coleman’s offensive contribution came on two 3-pointers in the second half. He also missed a three with 18 seconds to go with the Pack trailing 84-78. Coleman was 2-of-6 from the floor with four of those six shots coming outside the 3-point circle. He missed a mid-range jumper 4:30 into the game and a layup with 15 minutes left in the second half and never got to the line the entire game.

Coleman only was called for two fouls but, unfortunately for him and the Pack, those fouls came just 11 seconds apart, forcing him to the bench for the final 7:36 of the first half. Colorado State scored 22 points in those final seven-plus minutes after scoring 21 for the first 12-plus minutes of the half.

Coleman has struggled mightily in his six career Mountain West Tournament games, scoring just a combined 25 points (4.2 points a game) on 6-of-26 shooting (23 percent). The Pack has lost four of the six games (and the last three).

K.J. HYMES: C +

It’s seemingly always a mixed bag of results with the sixth-year center and Thursday was no different. The 6-10 Hymes had eight points, three rebounds and a block in just 19 minutes. But he also missed 5-of-9 free throws and committed three fouls.

The eight points and 19 minutes are career highs for Hymes in his six career conference tournament games. He finishes his Mountain West career with 20 points in six league tournament games with 20 fouls over 65 combined minutes.

The Pack clearly played better with Hymes on Thursday than it did without him, outscoring the Rams 45-38 when he was on the floor. Much of Hymes’ production on Thursday came over an active three-minute stretch midway through the second half when he had five points on a jumper in the paint, a layup and a free throw to go along with a rebound.

BENCH

DANIEL FOSTER: C -

Foster’s biggest contribution was a 3-pointer off a feed from Blackshear that cut the Colorado State lead to 79-72 with three minutes to play. He also had an offensive rebound and a layup to pull the Pack to within 42-30 with four seconds left in the first half.

But that was about the only time we noticed the senior in his 25 minutes. Foster was 2-of-4 from the floor with five rebounds, two turnovers, a steal and four fouls. Colorado State outscored the Pack 58-43 when Foster was on the floor.

TYLER ROLISON: C

Rolison had six points but half of that was due to a silly, frustration-induced foul by the Rams’ Isaiah Stevens (Rolison stole the ball from him) with under a second to play in the first half. Rolison made all three of his gift free throws as the Pack somehow scored five points in the final four seconds of the half to cut the deficit to a manageable 43-33.

Rolison, a 6-foot freshman point guard, played just 14 minutes despite McIntosh’s absence. He was called for three fouls and turned the ball over twice and was on the bench for all but the final 29 seconds of the last 9-plus minutes.

Colorado State outscored the Pack 35-29 with Rolison on the floor.

Rolison, playing in his first career conference tournament game, did all of his damage from the line, going 6-of-7. He missed all three of his shots (two threes and a layup) from the floor, though he did feed Blackshear for a dunk and Hymes for a layup.

TYLAN POPE: B +

Pope gave the Wolf Pack a solid and productive 16 minutes with 10 points (he outscored three Pack starters), six rebounds and a blocked shot.

The 6-6, 240-pounder, in his first season at Nevada after three at Tulane, had a dunk and blocked a Patrick Cartier jumper in the paint in a span of 23 seconds midway through the first half. His four free throws in the final three minutes of the opening half helped keep the Pack in the game.

Pope’s layup with 5:21 to play cut the Rams’ lead to 74-69 but he then picked up two fouls in just 37 seconds and didn’t play the final 3:27.

JAZZ GARDNER: Incomplete

The 7-foot freshman from Pasadena, Calif., played just the final 41 seconds of the first half. He’s now stepped on the floor in just two games for a combined two minutes since Feb. 9. Transfer portal, here we come?

COACHING: C - 

Steve Alford never really got a grip on this game. Basically, nothing he did could change the momentum of the game. The loss of McIntosh threw Alford’s rotation out of whack and the Pack coach never really had a plan to fix it.

Losing your sixth man, a guy who struggled to contribute meaningful minutes most of the season until only recently, shouldn’t bother a 26-win team as much as it did the Pack on Thursday. Alford’s only real plan to combat the loss of McIntosh was to simply never allow Lucas to leave the floor.

Why did Lucas play 39 minutes when his game deteriorated as the minutes piled up? Why did Pope play just 16 minutes when he was so effective? Why did Rolison play just 14 minutes with McIntosh unavailable? Why was Davidson taken out of the game with 5:17 to play when he just had back-to-back layups? Why did Blackshear play just 11 minutes in the first half?

Alford, we’re sure, has realistic answers to all of those questions. But he also never really had an answer to what Colorado State did to his Pack the entire game.

A lot of what happened, to be fair, was out of Alford’s control. Davidson, Coleman and Pope, for example, each had the misfortune to pick up two quick fouls in under two minutes at different times. Lucas never got hot in the second half, Blackshear didn’t show up in the first half, Coleman did almost nothing on offense and the Rams seemed to bottle up Davidson for much of the game.

The worst part of Thursday is that the Pack didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency at all. Yes, they never quit and were a 3-pointer or two from stealing a victory they didn’t deserve in the final few minutes. But they also never really delivered a knockout blow to the Rams.

A 5-1 lead turned into a 12-5 deficit and the Pack seemed unable to recapture control the rest of the game. The Pack never led the final 36-plus minutes and spent the bulk of that time trailing by double digits. Where was the effort on defense that allowed the Pack to win 26 of its first 32 games?

The Pack played on Thursday like a team that knew it had already wrapped up a NCAA Tournament bid and had a built-in excuse to lose on Thursday because of the injury to McIntosh.

Alford is now 2-5 in Mountain West Tournament games since he came to Nevada. He’s now suffered three surprising losses (Wyoming in 2020, San Jose State last year and Colorado State on Thursday) in his first conference tournament game in three of his five Pack seasons.

OVERALL: C - 

This was not the effort or performance we expected after such an impressive (seven wins in a row and 10 of its last 11) end to the regular season. Colorado State outcoached and outplayed the Wolf Pack for the bulk of the game and the Pack never really had any answers.

The shorthanded Pack bench got outplayed, the Pack was sloppy (15 turnovers) and nobody on the roster stepped up. The Pack had just 11 assists and the defense, well, it never made the trip to Las Vegas. We saw how fragile this team truly is. A bench player misses the game, and the entire roster and coaching staff is thrown into disarray.

The good news is that the Pack will be well-rested when it plays its first game in the NCAA Tournament next week. McIntosh could be back in the lineup and the Wolf Pack will be extra motivated to win its first postseason tournament game (Mountain West or NCAA) since it beat New Mexico on March 9, 2022.

The disappointing news is that the Pack more than likely squandered away its only legitimate chance to win a postseason tournament this year as well as its first 30-win season in school history.

Both of those goals, of course, are still technically on the table as the 26-7 Pack awaits Selection Sunday. But a 30-win season will now require the Pack to get to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament (if it doesn’t have to play in a silly First Four game early next week).

So, yes, we’re saying there is still a chance.