The Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball team's nervous twitch, mild concern and low level of anxiety over the past two months is about to turn into a full-fledged panic attack.
The Wolf Pack went up against two of the better teams in the Mountain West last week and, well, played like a random middle-aged fan yanked out of the stands for a half-court shot at halftime. It wasn't pretty or even mildly entertaining and even touched on sad and disturbing at times as the Pack got blown out by Utah State (90-69 on the road) and San Diego State (69-50 at Lawlor Events Center).
What we feared, hinted at and warned you about for the better part of the last eight weeks has, indeed, come true. The Wolf Pack has become a mediocre, dysfunctional, one-dimensional, disjointed, grasping-at-straws basketball team. It's a team that continues to do the same things game after game while expecting a different result.
The Pack, which started the season 6-1, has gone 5-8 since Thanksgiving when it came back home from a tournament in Charleston, S.C. Coach Steve Alford's Wolf Pack teams (since 2019-20) historically go through some sort of dip in the middle of the season. Even last year's 26-8 team lost four-of-five and five of nine at one point.
But this decline seems different, longer, more serious and, as Alford put it on Saturday, far more frustrating.
Alford said after the loss to San Diego State that he has felt frustration since Thanksgiving. That is not something to take lightly. When a coach like Alford says he has been frustrated for two months, well, it’s obvious that this is not your normal mid-season Wolf Pack lull. Alford sounded like a coach out of answers Saturday.
That, of course, is not true. Few coaches in the country have as many answers as Alford, a guy who has nearly 50 years’ experience playing and coaching at a high level, from high school to the NBA. It's just that he has yet to find the answer that applies to this team.
The good news is that it is still early. We aren't even at the mid-way point of the Mountain West season with 11 league games remaining. The Wolf Pack can point its season in the right direction over the next 17 days or so with games at home against UNLV (Feb. 1) and Fresno State (Feb. 10) and on the road at Boise State (Jan. 29), Air Force (Feb. 4) and San Jose State (Feb. 14).
We could be looking at a Pack team that is 15-10, 7-7 and feeling pretty good about itself the night of Valentine's Day. And then Alford can blame the fans and the media for panicking too early, like he usually does.
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The most interesting thing Alford said after the loss to San Diego State is that his team is lacking cohesiveness and toughness. Those words point to one area that has been a bit overlooked this year: the lack of a true point guard.
Alford's Pack teams have been blessed with high-level point guards since he came to Nevada. Those point guards (Lindsey Drew, Grant Sherfield and Kenan Blackshear) were, at times, dominant, forceful, resourceful and true leaders. Drew was an elite facilitator and a calming influence. Sherfield and Blackshear were bold, fearless and unafraid to simply put the team on their backs.
The Pack doesn't have any of that this year. There is no calming influence when things are going sideways, no true leader who will keep everyone in line and certainly nobody who will put the team on their back. With Drew, Sherfield and Blackshear there was never any concern about cohesiveness or toughness or doubt as to who was running the team on the floor.
This Pack team simply doesn't have that sort of player to lean on at crucial times. There's plenty of talent on the roster but talent doesn't always win games when everything is on the line. Leadership, focus, fearless confidence and a player everyone looks to for guidance and courage is what wins games in the gut-check times.
Kobe Sanders (86 assists) and Tre Coleman (83) are the closest the Pack has to a point guard but their skill sets (Sanders is 6-foot-9 and Coleman is 6-7) are better suited for other things. Power forward Kirk Davidson, who is 6-9, has 61 assists and even the 6-6 Daniel Foster (20 assists) might be the best passers on the team. But Foster rarely shoots and Davidson probably should shoot more and pass less if this team is going to fix things.
Tyler Rolison, who is just 6-foot, has 22 assists but he's been reduced to an afterthought lately, playing just 27 minutes over the last four games combined.
The lack of a true point guard has left the Pack offense scattered, unreliable and unfocused from game to game, half to half. It's a team without a true offensive identity. They threw up 33 and 36 3-point attempts in back-to-back games (making 31-of-69) against South Dakota State and Texas Southern in the middle of December. Those two games, though, seem to have thrown the Pack offense into a funk it simply cannot escape.
Since those two games, well, the offense has been stagnant and predictable at times and a mess, like against San Diego State. The Pack has topped 70 points just three times in its nine league games with two of those 70-plus point efforts coming in overtime games.
The only times lately we've seen the Pack as bold and aggressive from beyond the arc like it was during the Texas Southern-South Dakota State 3-point parties was when they were 5-of-30 on against Fresno State and 5-of-26 against San Diego State. That was examples of the Pack throwing slop up against the wall and seeing what would stick.
This is clearly a basketball team right now that is all over the road offensively. They basically just flip the ball around the perimeter looking for an open 3-pointer or dump it inside to Davidson when he breaks free in the paint. Somebody needs to step up and act like a true point guard and leader.
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What changes will Alford make starting Wednesday night in Boise? Your guess is as good as anyone's right now, including Alford's.
One change Alford must make is to find a way to make Brandon Love productive again. Love, who started 11 of the first 12 games (when the Pack was 8-4) has basically disappeared. He has played just 51 minutes over the last eight games combined with five points, one block, one assist, three steals and nine rebounds. He had 90 points, 12 blocks, 10 steals, seven assists and 50 rebounds over the first 12 games when he was a serious part of the rotation.
The other player Alford needs to energize is Tyler Rolison. Rolison is just 6-foot and can be a defensive liability. But he's a fearless scorer and could inject life back to this Pack offense with more consistent minutes. We saw him score 13 points off the bench against Vanderbilt and 14 against South Dakota State this year already. He also had eight points on efficient 3-for-3 shooting from the floor (2-of-2 on threes) against Utah State and nine points against Washington. Last year as a freshman he had 12 points against Pacific and San Jose State and 10 against Drake. He had two or more assists in a game 15 times and was a reliable 3-point shooter for the year (16-of-42, .381). He's been even better beyond the arc this year (14-of-28, .500).
The biggest change Alford needs to make, though, is to find a starting unit that can be productive night after night. The starters scored an embarrassing 23 points against San Diego State. Change is needed.
Alford inserted role players Daniel Foster and K.J. Hymes into the starting five in late December and, well, the Pack has been treading water ever since offensively. Foster and Hymes, who have been loyal Pack soldiers since, it seems, before the invention of the internet, are great teammates and deserve to be rewarded with playing time. But does it have to be in the starting lineup? They shouldn't be anywhere near a starting five on a team that has NCAA Tournament aspirations.
Yes, Foster and Hymes could start on a team that also has Caleb and Cody Martin and Jordan Caroline or one with Kirk Snyder, Nick Fazekas and Kevinn Pinkney. But none of those guys are coming out of the Pack locker room anymore.
Alford, like all coaches, clearly has his favorites. Those favorites this year seem to be Davidson, Coleman, Hymes and Foster, the guys who have been around forever. They are rewarded with consistent treatment from Alford no matter what happens on the court even though all four have been on a roller coaster lately as far as their production on the court is concerned. Everyone else's fate on the roster, it seems, depends on which way the wind is blowing. Love and Rolison, it seems, have been blown off Alford's radar.
If Alford is going to make meaningful changes he might have to expand his favorites' list.
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Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills and Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens, thanks to Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, have become the NFL's version of Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.
All of those great NBA players in and around the 1990s never won a NBA title because of, for the most part, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. All were great, all will be remembered fondly but none of them ever won a title.
Mahomes is making sure Allen and Jackson will turn into Barkley, Malone and Stockton and every other star who happened to play when Jordan and the Bulls had two three-peats (1991-93 and 1996-98).
Does it dim the greatness of Allen and Jackson that they haven't even gotten to a Super Bowl because they made the mistake of playing in the AFC with Mahomes? Well, yes, a little. Everything in the NFL, after all, is always about the Super Bowl. Allen and Jackson will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday along with Mahomes. But they will have to take a seat next to Dan Marino. Jim Kelly and Fran Tarkenton, who also never won a Super Bowl.
Mahomes, when he gets to Canton, will be sitting next to Tom Brady and Joe Montana. The glare off their Super Bowl rings will be seen from space.
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If Mahomes beats the Philadelphia Eagles, you will read and hear about how he is on a path to surpass Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
It will be Mahomes' fourth Super Bowl victory, equaling Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana and behind just Brady (seven). It's difficult right now to see Mahomes falling short of Brady's seven titles. This is just his seventh season as a starter and he will be going to his fifth Super Bowl. He's just 29 years old. All he does, it seems, is win Super Bowls.
If Mahomes beats the Eagles he'll need just three more Super Bowl wins to catch Brady. You know he won't retire until he catches and then passes Brady, meaning he legitimately has about a dozen more years left. His coach, Andy Reid, is just 66. He can stick around another dozen years easy. Technology, after all, will allow Reid to call plays and coach from home in a few years. And didn't the Las Vegas Raiders just hire 73-year-old Pete Carroll as head coach, a guy who hasn't won a Super Bowl since 2013?
Yes, the thought of Mahomes dominating the NFL for another dozen years is frightening for NFL fans everywhere but in Kansas City. It's also coming after Brady dominated the league for two decades.
So expect the social media goofballs to go wild over the next decade or so, saying the NFL is fixed and the officials are told who to favor. It's been going on ever since Brady started winning Super Bowls two decades ago and will continue as long as Mahomes is collecting rings.
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The one player who always gets overlooked in the conversation about the greatest quarterback to play the game is Otto Graham. Graham, who passed away in 2003 when Brady had just one Super Bowl ring, made the huge mistake of never having played in a Super Bowl. It was a mistake he has never been able to overcome.
Keep Graham's name in mind when you are inundated with all of the Mahomes-Brady talk about the greatest quarterback in history. Graham, after all, just might be the greatest winner in pro football history.
Graham won seven championships in his 10 pro football seasons with the Cleveland Browns. He won four titles in four seasons in the All-America Football Conference (1946-49) and three in six years in the NFL (1950-55). The three seasons (1951-53) he didn't win a title he also got to the championship game and lost. The first title game (1951) Graham lost was to the Los Angeles Rams, who had a punt returner named Tommy Kalmanir, a former Wolf Pack great. One of Graham's teammates in that 1951 game (and most of his pro football career) was Marion Motley, another ex-Pack star.
Graham's 10 NFL teams had a record of 47-4-1 in the AAFC and 57-13-1 in the NFL (1950-55) for a combined record of 114-17-2. That's Tiger Woods in his prime. Graham, don't forget, got to 10 league championship games (seven wins) in 10 years. Take that, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
Graham, though, also made the mistake of playing his entire career before television made football the national sport. The AAFC also never got the credit it deserved even though three of its teams went on to enjoy great success in the NFL (the Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts).
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The Chiefs will likely be called the greatest NFL team in the Super Bowl era if they win on Sunday because it will be their third title in a row. No team has ever won three Super Bowls in a row mainly because the Chiefs will be the first team already with two Super Bowl wins who then played in another Super Bowl.
The San Francisco 49ers, who won the Super Bowl after the 1989 and 1990 regular seasons, got the closest to three in a row but lost on a last-second field goal to the New York Giants in 1991. Green Bay won the first two Super Bowls after the 1966 and 1967 season but didn't get back in 1968. The Miami Dolphins won in 1972 and 1973 but didn't get back in 1974. The Pittsburgh Steelers won in 1974 and 1975 and again in 1978 and 1979 but didn't get to the Super Bowls after the 1976 and 1980 seasons and didn't have a chance to three-peat.
The same held true for the Dallas Cowboys (winners in 1992 and 1993), Denver Broncos (1997, 1998) and New England Patriots (2003, 2004), who all won two in a row but didn't get a chance to defend their title and three-peat.
The Chiefs, therefore, have already done the hard part by getting to a third Super Bowl in a row with a giant bulls' eye on their backs in the form of two titles in a row. Beating the Eagles will be the easy part.