NEVADA WOLF PACK (2-1) at VCU RAMS (3-1)
GAME #4
Fri., Nov. 27, 2009 - 7:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. PT) - Siegel Center (7,500) - Richmond, Va.
TELEVISION: None
RADIO: University of Nevada Sports Network (Fox Sports 1450 AM, Reno;
KELK 1240 AM, Elko; KHWG 750 AM, Fallon & KSVL 92.3 FM, Yerington)
Jon Laaser (play-by-play), pregame show starts at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT)
SERIES HISTORY: Nevada leads the all-time series 1-0.
LAST MEETING: Nevada won the only previous meetings between the two teams, turning in a 71-70 victory on Feb. 20, 2009 in the ESPNU BracketBusters in Reno.
Following a 112-99 victory over Houston on Saturday night, the Nevada Wolf Pack (2-1) hits the road this week, starting a three-game road swing with a trip to Virginia Commonwealth University (3-1) on Friday night. Friday's game at the Rams' Siegel Center in Richmond, Va., tips off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time (4:30 p.m. Pacific Time) and can be heard on Nevada's flagship radio station, ESPN 630 AM, with Jon Laaser calling the action. Nevada rebounded from its first loss of the season with Saturday's high-scoring victory over Houston and heads to the East Coast looking for its first road win of the year. The trip also resumes the team's stretch of four of five away from Lawlor Events Center. Following Friday's game, the Wolf Pack wraps up its East Coast swing with a game at No. 11/12 North Carolina on Sunday, Nov. 29. The team will also travel to Pacific on Dec. 5 before returning home on Dec. 8 vs. Fresno Pacific.
Under the direction of first-year head coach David Carter, the Wolf Pack returns three starters and a total of eight letterwinners from last year's 21-13 team, including the preseason WAC Player of the Year in sophomore forward Luke Babbitt who led the team in scoring and rebounding last season as a true freshman and preseason first-team All-WAC selection junior guard Armon Johnson who was second on the team in scoring and paced the Wolf Pack in assists last year. This season's team also features three seniors in guards Brandon Fields and Ray Kraemer and forward Joey Shaw as well as five new faces. Last season, Nevada turned in its sixth consecutive year with at least 20 wins and earned the team's seventh consecutive postseason appearance with an invitation to the College Basketball Invitational.
SHAW NAMED WAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Joey Shaw has been named the Verizon Wireless Western Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Week for the week of Nov. 16-22. The honor marks the first career WAC Player of the Week award for Shaw.
Shaw, a senior from Glendale, Ariz., helped the Wolf Pack to a 1-1 record last week. Against UNLV, Shaw tallied 15 points and tied a career high with nine rebounds. Shaw then led Nevada with a career-high 26 points on 9-of-12 shooting in the victory over Houston. He also tied his career mark with nine rebounds.
On the week, Shaw averaged 20.5 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game. He shot 61.9 percent from the field (13-of-21), 50 percent from beyond the arc (3-of-6), and 92.3 percent from the free throw line (12-of-13).
LIGHTING UP THE SCOREBOARD
Nevada's 112 points in Saturday's win over Houston marked the most for the Wolf Pack since the team turned in a 117-88 win over Northwestern State on Dec. 19, 1991. The team's 61 points in the first half also mark the most points in a half since Nevada scored what is believed to be a school-record 71 points in the second half of a 117-88 win over Northwestern State on Dec. 19, 1991.
Nevada is leading the WAC in scoring offense this season at 87.3 points per game, 7.3 points ahead of second-place Idaho (80.0 ppg). Five Wolf Pack players are averaging in double figures for scoring this season, and Nevada has three players ranked in the WAC's top 10, including senior Brandon Fields who is tied for third at 20.0 points per game. Sophomore Luke Babbitt is tied for sixth in the WAC at 18.0 ppg, while junior Armon Johnson is seventh at 17.3 ppg. Seniors Joey Shaw and Ray Kraemer are also in double figures at 15.3 and 10.7 points per contest, respectively.
All five of Nevada's leading scorers reached double figures in Saturday's Houston win, including Shaw who led the team with a career-best 26 points. Fields added 24, while Johnson had 22 and Kraemer scored a career-best 19. Saturday's game marked the first time that Nevada had three players score at least 20 points in the same game since the Wolf Pack turned in an 85-72 win at Idaho on Feb. 16, 2008. Marcelus Kemp scored 32 in that game, while Fields had 21 and JaVale McGee added 20.
The Wolf Pack has had a different player lead the team in scoring in each of its first three games this year. Sophomore Luke Babbitt paced the team with 26 points in the season-opening win over Montana State, Fields had 22 in a Nov. 18 loss at UNLV and Shaw turned in his career-best 26 in Saturday's win over Houston.
In addition to the 112 points scored by the Wolf Pack Saturday, the Nevada football team won its eighth consecutive game with a 63-20 victory at New Mexico State on Saturday. The combined 175 points are likely the most ever scored by the Wolf Pack basketball and football teams on the same day. The only date that comes close is Dec. 8, 1990 when the two teams combined for 140 points in a 59-52 victory over Boise State by the Wolf Pack football team and a 131-81 loss to UNLV by the Nevada basketball squad.
ROAD WARRIORS
Nevada is in the middle of a stretch of four of five games away from the friendly confines of Lawlor Events Center. The stretch started with a loss at UNLV on Nov. 18 and will include three consecutive road games, starting Friday at VCU. During the next three-game road stretch, Nevada will rack up 5,731 travel miles. The Wolf Pack will travel 2,661 miles from Reno to Richmond, Va., to take on VCU on Friday, Nov. 27. Following Friday's game, the team will bus 165 miles to Chapel Hill, N.C., to take on North Carolina on Sunday, Nov. 29. Then Nevada will fly the 2,639 miles from North Carolina back to Reno before making the 266-mile round trip bus ride to Pacific on Saturday, Dec. 5.
ON THE ROAD
Nevada has won 35 of its last 56 games away from the friendly confines of Lawlor Events Center, including 30 road wins and five neutral-site victories (dating back to midway through the 2005-06 season). In 2006-07, the team turned in a 14-4 record away from home, including a 10-2 road mark and a 4-2 record in neutral-site games. The Wolf Pack has won 18 of its last 33 regular-season road contests and 29 of its last 45 and turned in an 8-5 road mark last season (6-2 in WAC play). In 2006-07, the team saw an 11-game regular-season road winning streak snapped with a Jan. 20, 2007 loss at New Mexico State. Prior to that, the team had not dropped a road contest since falling at Fresno State on Jan. 18, 2006.
In the last six seasons since the start of the 2004-05 campaign, the Wolf Pack has tallied a 46-22 record in road contests (.676 winning percentage). That includes a 32-10 record in WAC road games (.762).
ABOUT THE VCU RAMS
Under the direction of first-year head coach Shaka Smart, the VCU Rams retuned four starters and eight letterwinners from last year's 24-10 NCAA Tournament team. VCU won the Colonial Athletic Association regular-season championship with a 14-4 conference mark last year and also captured the CAA Tournament title to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Rams have opened the 2009-10 season with a 3-1 mark, most recently upsetting 17th-ranked Oklahoma 82-69 on Saturday and turning in a 63-52 win at Hampton on Monday night.
Junior forward Larry Sanders (6-11, 235) is leading the team in scoring at 11.8 points per game and is also adding 4.8 rebounds per contest. Sophomore guards Jay Gavin (6-2, 200) and Brandon Burgess (6-5, 215) are tied for second on the team with 11.3 ppg. Gavin transferred to VCU from Marist and turned in a game-high 20 points in the Rams' win over Oklahoma. He is also leading the team in three-point shooting, making 47.6 percent of his attempts (10-21), including four treys vs. the Sooners and three at Hampton. Burgess is the team's top rebounder this year, pulling down 7.0 boards per game, and had a double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds Monday at Hampton.
IN THE SERIES
Friday will mark the second meeting between Nevada and VCU with the Wolf Pack holding a 1-0 advantage in the series, while Friday's game is a rematch of last year's ESPNU BracketBusters contest in Reno.
The Wolf Pack turned in a 71-70 come-from-behind victory over the Rams on Feb. 20, 2009 at Lawlor Events Center. Nevada trailed by nine points with six minutes to play in that game but used an 18-5 run to take a 68-67 lead with 28.6 seconds to play. Joey Shaw hit two free throws to make it 70-67 with 13.7 seconds to play and Luke Babbitt made one more with 1.8 seconds left to seal the victory. VCU's Joey Rodriguez hit a 75-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it wasn't enough to overcome the Wolf Pack rally. That game also marked the first unofficial coaching victory over David Carter's career as he engineered the Wolf Pack rally after former head coach Mark Fox was ejected with 8:20 to play in that game.
The Wolf Pack holds a 2-0 record against teams from the Colonial Athletic Association, also downing Georgia State 76-55 on Nov. 21, 2004 in the Jim Thorpe Classic in Reno, Nev.
SHOOTING TOUCH
Nevada is leading the WAC in field goal and three-point percentage, knocking down 51.4 percent of its field goal attempts and 46.3 percent of its three-point attempts (25-54). Those numbers compare to the team's 42.7 overall percentage and 30.6 three-point percentage last season. Nevada ranked seventh in the WAC and 267th out of 303 Division I teams in three-point percentage last season.
The Wolf Pack has shot over 50 percent in two of its three games this season, including a sizzling 60.9 percent in Saturday's victory over Houston. That marked the team's first 60-percent effort since a 62.3-percent shooting night at San Jose State on Feb. 12, 2009. The Wolf Pack also made 50 percent of its three-point attempts in each of its last two games (6-of-12 at UNLV and 11-of-22 vs. Houston). The 11 three-pointers made marked the most for Nevada since it made 11 in a Feb. 9, 2008 win over Hawai'i.
Senior Ray Kraemer is leading the team and ranked fourth in the WAC in field goal percentage (64.7) so far this season. He is also ranked second in the WAC in three-point percentage at 61.5 percent (8-13). He made a career-best four three-pointers in Saturday's win over Houston, going 7-of-9 overall from the field and 4-of-6 from three-point land, and went 3-of-5 from beyond the three-point line in Nevada's season-opening win over Montana State. Senior Brandon Fields also tied his career high with four three-pointers made vs. the Cougars. Fields and Shaw are also tied for fifth in the WAC in three-pointers made per game with 2.67.
BABBITT PICKING UP WHERE HE LEFT OFF LAST YEAR
Sophomore forward Luke Babbitt has just picked up where he left off last season, leading the Wolf Pack with his seventh and eighth career doubles in each of the last two games. He turned in 14 points and 10 rebounds Nov. 18 at UNLV and had 14 points and a career-best 17 rebounds Saturday vs. Houston. He opened the year with 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting in the team's Nov. 14 win over Montana State. That marked his 12th career game with at least 20 points and the 16th time in his career that he has paced the team in scoring (15 times last year). He has scored in double figures in 34 of 37 career games at Nevada, including all three contests this year. The preseason WAC Player of the Year, Babbitt has been named to the preseason watch lists for the 2009-10 John R. Wooden Award and Naismith Trophy. Both awards are annually presented to the top player in college basketball.
Babbitt, a 6-9, 225-pound forward from Reno, Nev., was named the 2009 WAC Freshman of the Year last season after leading the team in scoring and rebounding with 16.9 points and 7.4 boards per game. An all-district selection by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the United States Basketball Writers Association, he ranked second among the nation's freshmen in scoring behind just Liberty's Seth Curry who averaged 20.2 points per game last year. Babbitt finished third in the WAC in scoring and rebounding and led the league in free throw shooting. Babbitt also set nearly every Wolf Pack freshman single-season record, including scoring with 573 total points.
The Naismith watch list was compiled by the Atlanta Tipoff Club's Board of Selectors, which based its criteria on player performances from the previous year and expectations for the 2009-10 college basketball season. In late February, the Atlanta Tipoff Club's Board of Selectors will compile a mid-season team of the Top 30 players in the nation. In March, the voting academy will vote to narrow the list to the four finalists, while the Naismith Trophy presented by AT&T will be awarded at the 2010 NCAA Men's Final Four in Indianapolis, Ind.
In late December, the Wooden Award Committee will release the Midseason Top 30 list, followed in March by the National Ballot, consisting of approximately 20 top players who have proven to their universities that they are also making progress toward graduation and maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA. The Wooden Award All-American Team will be announced the week of the "Elite Eight" round during the NCAA Tournament. The 34th annual Wooden Award ceremony, which will include the announcement of the Wooden Award winners, and the presentation of the Wooden Award All-American Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, will take place the weekend of April 9-11, 2010.
This year marks the fourth time in five seasons that Nevada has had a player on the preseason list for the Wooden Award with Marcelus Kemp making the list in 2007-08 and Nick Fazekas in 2005-06 and 2006-07. Fazekas was named to the final ballot for the Wooden Award in each of those years and in 2006-07, he was named one of 10 Wooden Award All-Americans and finished eighth in the final voting for the award.
ASSISTS MACHINE
Junior guard Armon Johnson is leading the Wolf Pack in assists for the third consecutive season and is tops in the WAC this year with 6.33 assists per game this year. He dished out a career-best 12 assists in Saturday's game vs. Houston for his second career double-double. He also had 11 points and 11 assists in last year's win over Oregon State, which marked Nevada's first points-assists double-double since Ramon Sessions had his lone career double-double in 2004-05 vs. Boise State (11 points and 10 assists).
Johnson needs just 18 more assists to enter Nevada's top 10 for career assists. He currently has 275 career assists and is chasing Kyle Shiloh who dished out 293 assists in his career from 2004-07 to rank 10th on the Nevada career charts.
As a team, Nevada is leading the WAC in assists with 17.33 per game, while the team's 27 assists Saturday vs. Houston marked the most since the Wolf Pack had 27 in a March 1, 2008 win over Louisiana Tech. In addition to Johnson, senior Joey Shaw is tied for 10th in the WAC with 3.0 assists per game, including a career-best four assists in a Nov. 14 win over Montana State. Johnson (1.36) and Shaw (1.29) rank sixth and seventh in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio, respectively.
CARTER WINS HIS HEAD COACHING DEBUT
Nevada's Nov. 14 win over Montana State gave Nevada head coach David Carter his first career victory, and he is now 2-1 in his first year as the Wolf Pack's mentor. He becomes the eighth head coach in school history to win his first game, joining recent head coaches Trent Johnson and Mark Fox who also won their Wolf Pack coaching debuts.
After spending 10 years as an assistant on the Wolf Pack bench, including the last five as Nevada's associate head coach, Carter was named the 17th head coach in the history of the Nevada men's basketball program on April 3, 2009, just one day after fifth-year head coach Mark Fox announced that he was leaving Nevada after five seasons for the University of Georgia. Carter has been an integral part of Nevada's five WAC regular-season championships and seven postseason appearances, including four straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 2004-07. Carter was also recognized as one of the top assistant coaches in the nation, making FOXSports.com's list of the top 10 Mid-Major Assistant Coaches in 2007-08 and being named the best assistant coach in the Western Athletic Conference in Street's & Smith's 2004-05 College Basketball National Preview.
LAST TIME OUT
Senior Joey Shaw scored a career-best 26 points to lead Nevada to a 112-99 victory over Houston on Saturday night at Lawlor Events Center.
Senior Brandon Fields added 24 points and junior Armon Johnson 22 points and a career-high 12 assists for the Wolf Pack for his second career double-double. Sophomore Luke Babbitt had 14 points and 17 rebounds for Nevada, his eighth career double-double and his second this season. Aubrey Coleman scored 32 points and Adam Brown 25 for the Cougars.
The Wolf Pack led by as many as 26 points, 84-58 with 13:52 left, before Houston rallied to pull to within 100-94 on a three-point play by Desmond Wade with 5 minutes left.
The Wolf Pack responded with a 8-0 run, including six points by Shaw, to put the game out of reach for the Cougars.
Nevada led 61-44 at halftime, sparked by the hot hand of Fields who had 22 points in the first half on 9-of-11 shooting.
WOLF PACK NOTES
- Nevada outrebounded Houston 57-27, marking the first time this year that Nevada has outrebounded its opponent. With the season-best 57 boards, the Wolf Pack climbed to second in the WAC standings with 42.0 rebounds per contest this year. Four Wolf Pack players set or tied career bests for rebounding in that game including a career-high 17 by sophomore Luke Babbitt, a career best-tying nine by senior Joey Shaw and sophomore Dario Hunt and a career high-matching seven by junior Armon Johnson.
- Babbitt is ranked third in the WAC with 10.7 rebounds per game this season and has led the team in rebounding in each of the last two games.
- The 17 rebounds by Babbitt and the 12 assists by Johnson in Saturday's win are the most by WAC players so far this season.
- The Wolf Pack is pacing the WAC with 6.0 blocked shots per game after leading the conference in the category with 4.79 per tilt last season. Sophomore Dario Hunt is once again pacing the WAC in blocked shots with 2.67 per game, including five in the season opener vs. Montana State. That marked his 23rd career game with more than one block and his fourth career contest with five or more. Hunt has 76 blocks in his career (in 37 games, 2.05 per game), which already ranks ninth on the Nevada career list. Hunt's 67 blocks last season set the school freshman record and ranked third in the Nevada single-season record book.
- Senior Joey Shaw and sophomore Luke Babbitt are ranked fifth and sixth in the WAC, respectively, in free throw shooting. Shaw is shooting 93.3 percent from the line this year (14-15), while Babbitt is at 92.9 percent (13-14), including a 10-of-10 effort Nov. 18 at UNLV. Babbitt led the WAC in free throw percentage and ranked 24th in the country last year as a freshman at 86.4 percent.
TIMEOUT LUNCHEONS
The remaining University of Nevada's Time-Out Luncheons with first-year Wolf Pack head men's basketball coach David Carter are set for Tuesday, Dec. 1, Wednesday, Jan. 6 and Monday, Feb. 1.
The luncheons will take place monthly at the Silver Legacy. Doors open at 11:30 a.m., and the cost is $16 per person at the door.
The luncheons will feature a gourmet buffet prepared by the Silver Legacy, and the program includes game recaps and previews by Carter as well as appearances by other Wolf Pack coaches and staff. The room will be announced on the day of the luncheon.
For more information, call the Wolf Pack Athletics Department at 775-784-6900.
UP NEXT
Following Friday's game at VCU, the Wolf Pack continues its East Coast road trip at North Carolina on Sunday, Nov. 29. The UNC contest ends a two-for-one series between the Wolf Pack and the Tar Heels. The team will end its road stretch with a Dec. 5 contest at Pacific and returns to Reno on Dec. 8 to play host to Fresno Pacific.
