UTEP at Nevada
College Basketball Invitational Opening Round
March 17, 2009
Postgame Notes:
- With the 79-77 loss to UTEP in the opening round of the College Basketball Invitational, Nevada ended its season with a 21-13 mark. It marked Nevada’s seventh consecutive postseason appearance and its second straight in the CBI.
- It was also the team’s fourth game in six days, while the Wolf Pack ended the season winning eight of its last 11 games.
- The Wolf Pack also turned in the program’s sixth consecutive 20-win season and its 11th in 96 seasons of basketball at the University of Nevada.
- Nevada ended the year with a 13-8 mark at Lawlor Events Center this year and is now 86-17 at home since the start of the 2003-04 season (.835 winning percentage).
- Freshman Luke Babbitt led the team with 20 points and 10 rebounds. It marked his team-leading sixth double-double of the year. It was also his 11th 20-point game this year, the 15th time he has led the team in scoring and the 20th occasion that he paced the team in rebounding this season.
- Babbitt also became the first freshman since at least 1972-73 to lead the team in scoring and rebounding in a single season. He set the school freshman marks for points (573), field goals made (194) and attempted (425), free throws made (152) and attempted (176) and free throw percentage (.864).
- Sophomore Armon Johnson added 18 points, while sophomore Malik Cooke turned in 10 points and eight rebounds for the second consecutive game.
- Nevada finished the year with 23 games decided by 10 points or less (13-10 in those games), including 12 decided by five points or less (6-6 record).
- The Wolf Pack allowed the Miners 11 three-pointers tonight, one shy of the season high for a Nevada opponent. UTEP came into the game shooting 31.1 percent from three-point land but made 50 percent (11-of-22) tonight vs. Nevada.
- The WAC’s best free throw shooting team at 74.6 percent, Nevada shot 81.8 percent from the free throw line (18-22), its ninth 80-percent effort of the season. Babbitt made 11-of-12 free throw attempts in the game and leads the WAC at 86.4 percent (152-176) for the season.
Nevada Quotes
Freshman forward Luke Babbitt
On the game:
“It was a tough game. We got down. We made a couple of runs but could never get over the hump.”
On UTEP’s style of play:
“They are guard oriented and run a Memphis offense. They attack from the guards mostly and that was an adjustment we had to make. Give them credit. We didn’t do it tonight.”
On the growth of his team:
“We’ve grown as a team. The credit goes to Lyndale (Burleson). He’s been a great leader. Hopefully that will show next year even though he won’t be here. Hopefully that will really help us as a team.”
On the team’s focus tonight:
“I think we really wanted to win. We had some really passionate fans who came out tonight, and we’re thankful for that. We wanted to win; the passion was there.”
Senior guard Lyndale Burleson
On ending his career:
“I appreciate everything all the fans and the university did for me. I had a bunch of good times.”
Head Coach Mark Fox
On the final play:
“We called a timeout when they set their formation. They wanted 12 (Stefon Jackson) to make a play and he did... we got a shot, but just didn’t get it to go down.”
On UTEP’s three-point shooting:
“A team that shot 30 percent (from three-point land) on the year shot 50 percent. They did something uncharacteristic of their season. They shot the ball well.”
“We eventually got our defense to settle down. Give them credit. They made some shots.”
On his team’s slow starts in the last two games:
“The other night (Utah State) was some fatigue. Tonight we missed some little ones to start. We’re young. That was certainly an issue for us the last two games.”
On his team’s season:
“This school has played 96 seasons of basketball and this was the 11th 20-win season. This team was able to join that group. I’m proud of them for that. That is not easy to do. We had another early entry to the draft, so we were younger than we planned and smaller than we planned. Without JaVale, we were overscheduled, but I’m proud of our improvement throughout the year.”
“We had a lot of public growing pains, but those will all make us better.”
On freshman Luke Babbitt:
“He was hurt (the last two games). He still had 20 (points) and 10 (rebounds) with not being 100 percent. He had a phenomenal freshman year. He was an impact player and had to learn on the job without a frontline player to learn from.”
“He (Luke), Dario and Ahyaro had to learn everything on the job. That is extremely difficult. For him to play, perform and produce while doing that is very impressive.”
UTEP Quotes
UTEP head coach Tony Barbee
On the game:
“At least it was a good game for both teams. Both teams wanted to play. You can tell that both teams wanted to play hard. We did what we wanted to do in terms of starting this game and securing any road game, particularly here because of the great crowd they get.”
On Nevada:
“Coach Fox is a great coach and he’s done a terrific job. Up here they’ve got a really good team even though they are young just like us. We had to start the game quickly because we wanted to take the crowd out quickly. We didn’t want to get them into the game early. Boy, did we do that.”
