Nevada’s 75-66 Beats SDSU, Historic Night For The Program

Nevada Football First Loss, Shootout With Incarnate Word

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After an exciting back-and-forth duel, Nevada came up short losing 55-41 to University of the Incarnate Word.

The Nevada Wolf Pack had a great showing on offense as they put up a staggering 41 points. Nate Cox, quarterback, was the starter this game. He had an impressive 302 yards and two touchdowns in the passing game and one rushing touchdown. Cox found success through the air as five different players had three receptions or more in the game.

BJ Casteel, wide receiver, was the top receiver in this game. Casteel racked up a solid stat line of five receptions, 85 yards and one touchdown. Dalevon Campbell, wide receiver, turned in a nice performance as he finished with three receptions for 64 yards.

By Jalen Robinson

With the seconds winding down on the clock and the student section on the verge of rushing the court for the second straight home game, the University of Nevada, Reno men’s basketball team had the home crowd of 9,357 rumbling at the game against San Diego State University.

The impressive win over No. 23 SDSU on Jan. 31, marks the first time in program history the Nevada men’s basketball team has won consecutive home games versus ranked opponents. The Nevada Wolf Pack now move into sole possession of second place in the Mountain West Conference, trailing only Boise State and San Diego State both tied at 8-2 atop the conference.

The contributions from key players — Tré Coleman, Will Baker, Kenan Blackshear and Jarod Lucas — propelled the Wolf Pack to a nine-point victory over the SDSU Aztecs, 75-66. This core four tallied up 74 of the winning points.

Lucas, senior transfer guard from Oregon State, put up 26 points with help from Baker, scoring 19 points while grabbing eight rebounds. Approaching the game the Wolf Pack having previously lost every game SDSU since 2018.

Although trailing at halftime by 2 points to the Aztecs the Wolf Pack still held onto hope. Grabbing an early lead in the second half the Aztecs looked to secure sole possession of first place in Mountain West, but with 9:27 seconds left in the second half, neither team could secure anything larger than a 3-point lead. Blackshear secured a layup putting the Pack up 67-62 with 1:57 to play, eventually leading to a much needed conference win.

The Wolf Pack now eye the Mountain West Conference tournament with only eight games left — all being conference foes. Although it won’t be a cakewalk, the Wolf Pack are scheduled to play the University of New Mexico again; a team they just beat and bumped out of the No. 25 spot national ranking. After the Lobos, Nevada look to finish the season out with three home games with senior night set against arch rivals the UNLV Rebels.

The road to the Mountain West Conference Tournament and March Madness is theirs to lose and everything is within reach. program moved to 26-11 on the season, 7-6 in conference play. The team now looks to the west, where they will take on the Fresno State Bulldogs in a three game series on April 21-23 in Fresno, California.

Jalen Robinson can be reached via email at draridon@unr.edu or via Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.

Men’s basketball is headed back to March Madness

By Jalen Robinson

The Nevada men’s basketball team is back to the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament for the first time since 2018. Despite a rocky end to the season, losing their last three games, including their Mountain West conference quarterfinal game against the San Jose State Spartans, the Wolf Pack squeaked into the tournament for the very last atlarge bid.

The Wolf Pack qualified for an at-large bid and are slated to play the Arizona State Sun Devils on Wednesday, March 15 in Dayton, Ohio in the NCAA March Madness “First Four” round. What is an at-large bid? There are two forms of bids to get into March Madness, an atlarge bid and an automatic bid.

An automatic bid is given to teams who are the champions of their conference tournament, having the best record and winning the regular season conference title does not qualify as a bid. An at-large bid stands for all the teams that didn’t win their conference tournament, but whose resumes stand out, making them eligible for selection by the NCAA tournament committee. The committee looks at overall statistics, wins, losses, and strength of schedule when considering who should be an at-large bid.

Since the Pack was one of the last teams to qualify, they will, unfortunately, have to play an extra game in the first four before the tournaments start Thursday. The Pack will not be admitted into the March Madness bracket officially until then. What are the “First Four”? To keep it simple, the First Four is the first round and the remaining 64 rounds. Consisting of eight teams, the First Four are simply the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifying teams and the four lowest-seeded at-large bid teams in the tournament. Each at-large or automatic bid team will be slotted to play one game against another first four team or their equivalent opponent to see who advances to play in the March Madness bracket.

This is done to even the playing field of teams who have very impressive resumes, but compare to one another relatively the same.

Once that game is played, the winner will take over the seed that they are fighting for. In this case, Nevada is battling Arizona State University for the eleventh seed. This seed will advance to Friday to face off against the six seed Texas Christian University.

Despite sitting pretty and gazing at March Madness in 2nd place with only five games left before the Mountain West conference tournament, the Pack stumbled to the finish line. Almost giving up their spot to another at-large bid, the Pack dropped four of their last six games while losing three straight to end the season, two of them being overtime losses.

Even though the Pack’s rough patch came at the worst time of the year and much hope was lost for an at-large bid, the Pack still managed to finish thirty-seventh in the national rankings. This would later have them blessed by the selection committee, granting the Pack the last at-large bid available in the bracket. The decision by the committee left out the Oklahoma State Cowboys of the Big 12, being the first team out.

With that said, Wolf Pack March Madness basketball is back like it never left. The Pack looks to make a statement in their first NCAA tournament game since the Eric Musselman era in 2018. Nevada will play on Wednesday, March, 15th at 6:10 Pacific Time on TruTV, potentially playing in their only game of March Madness and the last game of the 2023 season.

Friday, April 28, and go through the weekend.

Nevada also found great success in the run game as they ended with 176 yards on the ground. The dynamic duo of senior running backs Toa Taua and Devonte Lee continually gashed the Incarnate Word defense. Taua had a marvelous game with 101 yards rushing, a touchdown on the ground, three receptions for 65 yards and a touchdown in the passing game. Lee had a great game of his own with 59 yards, a touchdown on the ground and three receptions for 42 yards through the air.

This was an overall great performance from the Nevada offense that can give fans confidence for later in the season.

The Nevada defense did not have their best showing as they got some stops late in the game, but it was not enough to turn the tide of the game.

Tyson Williams, defensive back, had an amazing performance with 11 total tackles, six solo tackles and one sack. SBentley Sanders, defensive back, continues his hot streak with another interception this game, including seven total tackles. Sanders has an interception in all three games this season, putting him at a total of four interceptions on the year.

Tariq Mack, defensive back, turned in a solid performance with seven total tackles and five solo tackles. The Nevada defense did not win the turnover battle as they have done in the first two games. They made stops late in the game but they simply could not contain the Incarnate Word offense.

The game started with an Incarnate Word fumble which was recovered by the Wolf Pack. Nevada could not take advantage of the short field position, and they settled for a 34-yard field goal from kicker Brandon Talton. In the next play following the kickoff, Sanders picked off Incarnate Word to set up the Nevada offense with phenomenal field position. After a short three-play drive, Taua made a nice 11-yard touchdown run to put the Wolf Pack up 10-0. Nevada was out to an early two-score lead when they forced an Incarnate Word punt, but the Wolf Pack fumbled on their next drive which led to an Incarnate Word field goal.

Nevada quickly answered back with a 12-play drive that resulted in a touchdown. The Wolf Pack had a great mix of passing and rushing capped off by a 7-yard Cox touchdown pass to Casteel. The resilient Incarnate Word offense came roaring back with a touchdown of their own before the end of the first quarter.

Nevada started the second quarter with a 17-9 lead, but things began to go downhill from here for Nevada. The two teams traded punts until Incarnate Word used a long 77-yard pass to punch in a 1-yard touchdown run. Nevada turned the ball over on downs before Incarnate Word found the end zone again to take the lead 24-17 with 3:28 seconds left in the half. Nevada’s offense continued to struggle as they were forced to punt again.

The Wolf Pack defense held strong forcing a missed field goal right before halftime.

Nevada was down 24-17 to begin the second half. However, things went from bad to worse as Incarnate Word strip-sacked Cox for a 59-yard touchdown return. This was a definitive play in the game that marked a huge uphill battle for Nevada.

Incarnate Word tried to put the nail in the coffin as they forced a Nevada punt and then scored on a seven-play drive. The Incarnate Word passing touchdown put them up 38-17 with 9:24 seconds in the third quarter. Nevada finally responded with a nice 10-play drive that ended in a 3-yard Cox touchdown run.

The Wolf Pack defense stepped up and forced a punt and the Nevada offense found the end zone again with a 26-yard touchdown pass from Cox to Taua. The Wolf Pack were down 38-31 with 19 seconds to go in the third quarter.

The momentum was on Nevada’s side as they began to mount an unlikely comeback in the fourth quarter. Incarnate Word tried to haunt the Nevada comeback when they kicked a 30-yard field goal to bump their lead to 41-31.

The Wolf Pack put together a nice drive capped off with a 40yard Talton field goal. Nevada brought the game back to a onescore game as they were down 41-34 with 10:33 left in the fourth Anthony Miranda can be reached via email at draridon@unr. edu or via Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.