Nevada Postgame Notes:
- With the 98-85 victory over New Mexico State, Nevada improved to 18-10 overall and 10-4 in WAC play.
- The team also notched its fifth consecutive home win and its 19th in its last 20 WAC regular-season home games.
- Nevada shot a season-high 61.4 percent from the field and turned in its third 60-percent effort of the year. The team also scored 98 points, which was its second-best total of the season and the most points in a WAC game since a 101-76 win over Rice on Jan. 24, 2004.
- The Wolf Pack has scored at least 80 points in 11 games this season and eight of the last 12. The team is 10-1 when scoring at least 80 points this season.
- Sophomore Brandon Fields turned in career highs for scoring and rebounding tonight with 29 points and nine rebounds. He made 9-of-11 attempts from the field and 10-of-11 from the free throw line. It marked his fourth career 20-point game (all this season).
- Senior Marcelus Kemp added 27 points for his 14th 20-point effort of the season, while sophomore JaVale McGee had 12 and freshman Armon Johnson added 11.
- Kemp led the team and set a career high with eight assists.
- McGee blocked five shots and moved into fourth on the Nevada career list with 109 blocked shots. It marked the 11th time this season that he has turned in at least four blocks.
- The Wolf Pack outrebounded the Aggies 40-35 and improved to 12-2 on the year when outrebounding its opponent.
- Nevada returns to action on Saturday night, playing host to Louisiana Tech at 6:05 p.m. at Lawlor Events Center in the team’s regular-season home finale. Saturday is Senior Night as the Wolf Pack will honor its four seniors forwards David Ellis and Demarshay Johnson and guards Marcelus Kemp and Curry Lynch.
Nevada Quotes
Nevada guard Marcelus Kemp on the game:
“It was a good game. We’re in a good position now. It was a good win for our team.”
Nevada guard Brandon Fields on the game:
“It was a good win. They are a good team. We lost to them last year. We’ve gone two-for-two this year.”
Fields on preparing the game:
“I think it was important coming to this game. Coach (Mark Fox) was hard on me all week at practice.”
Nevada forward JaVale McGee on the game:
“I’m just happy to win the game. I’m just looking forward to the next game.”
Nevada head coach Mark Fox on game:
“We beat an excellent team. We have a lot of respect for Coach Menzies and how they are playing. We beat a good basketball team.”
“They are a great rebounding team. We got out and we played extremely well early in the game and they came back like any good team does and it was a battle.”
Fox on guard Brandon Fields:
“He’s had a long week. I haven’t talked to him at all. I expected him playing better than he did playing. He deserves all credit, he played very well. All of our sophomores are growing up. It’s time to grow up, our sophomores are playing like juniors and our freshmen are playing like sophomores.”
Fox on forward Demarshay Johnson:
“Demarshay battled with key people. He started getting foul trouble. When he got hit, I told him I need him to get tougher than this and fight through this and come back.”
New Mexico State Quotes
New Mexico State head coach Marvin Menzies on the game:
“Nevada getting out on us in the beginning of the game probably hurt us the most, the way they jumped on us and got the crowd into it. It was one of those things if you can have the first four, five minutes back, maybe you can have a nail-biter instead of them protecting their lead.”
Menzies on Nevada guard Brandon Fields:
“He was good tonight. He’s getting more confident as the season goes on. He’s really developed and you can see it in his game. It’s a direct result of hard work and his coaching as well.”
Menzies on the first half:
“We knew that we couldn’t let them get into a rhythm and they did that. We had a lot of defensive miscues in the early part of the game and just throughout. It was a tough road loss for us. We’re still in good shape. We just got to finish strong.”
Menzies on the high score:
“Because we’ve been playing defense so well, I thought it was going to be a grinder. I knew we wouldn’t shoot it the way we did there (Las Cruces). We struggled here, the first half especially. We got going in the second half but it was a little too late.”
Menzies on the large deficits:
“It was one of those games where if you don’t get in the hole you don’t have to gamble so much. Then you could have probably played it down to our original game plan.”
Menzies on the rest of the season:
“It’s always the goal to win the next one and then win the next one. Our fate is in the hands of someone else unfortunately in terms of winning the conference championship. We’re still optimistic that we will do well the last three games.”
Menzies on the conference tournament:
“We have the conference tournament around the corner. It’s no time to hang your head. We just have to stay positive and play through it. I’m glad the tournament is in Las Cruces.”
