Following a tough trip to Logan, UT, where they lost a tough game to Utah State, the Lobos return to the friendly confines of the Pit Saturday night to face Nevada. Nevada has looked like one of the best teams in the conference and will certainly come in thinking they can win this game, so the Lobos will need to put on a good performance if they’re going to avoid back-to-back losses.

A Little About Nevada

What they’ve done so far:

The Wolf pack are off to an excellent start to the season, going 13-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play. After losing their opener on the road to St. Mary’s, they won 11 of their remaining 12 conference games, losing only the championship game of the Great Alaskan Shootout to Iona, a team they had beat at home just the week before. In conference play, they blasted an overmatched SJSU team in Reno, lost by one point on the road to Fresno State, and pulled out a 3-point win at home against SDSU on Wednesday. Going into the year, it was assumed that they would be towards the top of the conference standings, and nothing has happened to prove that assumption wrong.

Coach:

Eric Musselman is in his second season with the Wolf Pack, having compiled a 37-17 record so far. He’s been kind of a nomad in his career, never spending more than three years anywhere since 1995, but always coaching. He’s spent time as a head coach the NBA for the Warriors and the Kings and in the D-League for a couple of years as well. Nevada is his first collegiate head coaching job, but if things keep going well, it’s unlikely to be his last. There have been recent rumblings of the school trying to sign him to an extension, but it’s unclear if they’ll be able to ward off any Power-5 conferences that may come calling.

Probable Starters:

#1 Marcus Marshall (6’3” Guard, Senior): Marshall is a transfer from Missouri State who sat out last year because of transfer rules, but practiced the whole season with the Wolf Pack. He’s been a revelation for the team, averaging over 20 points per game while shooting 40% from three. He’s not just likely to be newcomer of the year in the conference, he’s got a shot at player of the year.

#14 Lindsey Drew (6’4” Guard, Sophomore): Drew is the main distributor on the team, putting up one of the highest assist rates in the conference. That does come with a price, however, as he also has kind of a high turnover rate. He tends to be the fourth or fifth option on offense, but he’s been pretty effective when he does shoot, making 56% of his twos and 42% of his threes.

#15 DJ Fenner (6’6” Guard, Senior): Fenner has been a sharpshooter for the Wolf Pack this season, making 52% of his threes. That’s waaaay above what he did last year, where he only shot 30%, so maybe something just happened to click this year. Basketball’s funny that way.

#24 Jordan Caroline (6’7” Forward, Sophomore): Caroline is another transfer who sat out last season, but still practiced with the team. In his lone season with Southern Illinois, he was on the all-Missouri Valley freshman team thanks to his 9.2 points and 6.2 boards per game. He’s a strong rebounder, especially on the offensive end, and he looks to score both inside and out. He’s not a great free throw shooter, but because he draws fouls at a high rate, he shoots a bunch of them.

#0 Cameron Oliver (6’8” Forward, Sophomore): Oliver was the conference’s freshman of the year last season and is still a beast. He’s averaging 15.1 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks per game while shooting 41.6% from three, which might give him what he needs to play in the NBA in the future. He does have a tendency of finding himself in foul trouble, which has hurt Nevada in all three of their losses, so if the Lobos can take advantage of that, it could help tip the odds in their favor.

Some Relevant Stats

(To read the plots, the further away from the center, the better the team is at each stat. That is, for each stat, the best team will have a value on the outside of the radar plot while the worst team will have a value on the very inside of the plot. For an explanation of the stats, click here. All stats taken from kenpom.com)

In the plot above, we see that Nevada has a slightly better offense than the Lobos, thanks to their advantages behind the arc and taking care of the ball. They aren’t a particularly good free throw shooting team, although they do have a few guys who can shoot well from the line. Because of their ability shooting the three, I would expect to see them take a bunch of shots from there. How well the Lobos defend the perimeter will be worth keeping an eye on.

As we can see, Nevada’s defense rates out slightly better than the Lobos. They’re particularly good at keeping opponents off the free throw line, which could spell trouble for the Lobos, and defending the three. They aren’t particularly good at forcing turnovers and their interior defense isn’t great, so look for the Lobos to continue to have success in the pain.

Scattered Thoughts

• In the last preview, I mentioned that the Lobos were dealing with some injuries. Apparently, neither of those were that bad, as Big O played against Utah State and Jordan Hunter is expected to play against Nevada. However, it was announced today that Xavier Adams tore his ACL against Utah State and will be out for the rest of the season. X has been playing well off the bench this season, usually as a small-ball power forward, and his relentless energy is going to be missed. Hopefully the surgery and rehab goes well and he’s able to get back to playing next year.
• That was a rough game against Utah State on Wednesday, where the Lobos weren’t quite able to overcome a couple of hurdles on their way to a 79-75 loss. The first issue were the injuries to Jordan and X, which took away a much needed perimeter threat and an aggressive rebounder. The second was Elijah getting into foul trouble, picking up his fourth foul with 18:30 left in the game, which was super-unfortunate, as the Aggies couldn’t guard him at all. Those things seemed to throw the Lobos off guard, which gave the Aggies the chance to build up a lead that the Lobos couldn’t quite come back from. Hopefully, they learned a few things from this game that can help them in the future (as, after all, the main goal at this point is to put themselves in a good position to win the conference tournament), and I think that they should be able to handle Utah State when they play again in a couple of weeks. Oh, and Tim Williams is still really good. We definitely learned that.
  Players of the game: 1) Tim Williams, 2) Elijah Brown, 3) Jalen Harris
• Here’s an open plea to, well, pretty much any guard/wing on the team: if you’re open for a three, please just shoot it. Even the announcers who probably did 15 minutes of research for the game were pointing out how guys were passing up open shots far too often.

Prediction

This is going to be a tough game, for sure, but I still like the Lobos’ chances, especially if they can get some of Nevada’s post players in foul trouble. I’ll pick them to win 76-72.

Game Info

Who: New Mexico Lobos (9-6, 2-1) vs Nevada Wolf Pack (13-3, 2-1)

When: Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 9:15pm MT

Where: The Pit, Albuquerque, NM

Watch: ESPN2

Listen: 770/94.5 KKOB