RENO, Nev. – With the regular season winding down, the Nevada women's basketball team will play one more conference series before heading to Las Vegas for the 2021 Air Force Reserve Mountain West Championship.

The Wolf Pack will square off against Air Force on back-to-back days this week to close the regular season. Game one will take place this Wednesday, March 3 at 1:30 p.m. PT and game two will follow on Thursday at 5 p.m. PT. With the upcoming conference tournament, Nevada will not make up its series with Colorado State and instead those two games will be declared "no contests."

This is the third attempt to play this series between the Wolf Pack and Falcons as the previous two had been postponed due to COVID-19 issues. As things are shaping up this series has big time seeding implications for the Wolf Pack, as it can still grab the No. 5, 6 or 7 seed depending on how these two games go. Nevada is firing on all cylinders right now, winning three consecutive games and six of its last eight games. Last week against Utah State, the Wolf Pack outscored its opponent by 36 points between the two games. Air Force has been playing well as of late though too, knocking off the second place team in the league, New Mexico, last week, and then snapping league-leading Colorado State's eight-game win streak on Monday.
 
ON THE AIR
Josh Suchon will have the call in Northern Nevada on CBS Sports Radio 94.1 FM and 1450 AM with a 20 minute pregame show prior to tipoff for both games. Fans can also tune in to listen to Suchon's broadcast online at TuneIn.com or via the TuneIn app.
 
Both games will also be live streamed on the Mountain West Network.

QUICK HITS
• With just one win, Levens will reach 100 victories in her Division I career
• A split with Air Force would give Nevada the No. 6 seed in the MW tournament
• Nevada has won three in a row and six of its last eight games
• The Pack earned its second MW sweep of the season over USU last week
• This is the third try this season at playing this series against Air Force

SERIES HISTORY
Nevada and Air Force are a fairly short series with just 20 games between them in program history and a bulk of those coming from when the Wolf Pack joined the Mountain West in 2012-13. It's Nevada that has the upper hand overall in the all-time series, winning 15 of the previous 20 contests. The series has been more even though in recent years as the two teams have split the regular season series in each of the past two years.

LAST TIME OUT (W, 70-63 vs. Utah State)
• LaPraisjah Johnson scored a career-high 18 points
• Nevada earned a sweep over the Aggies with the win
• Kenna Holt produced five assists to zero turnovers
• Dom Phillips grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds
• Nevada held USU to under 35 percent shooting for the second straight game
• The Pack was 17-of-19 from the free throw line

TOURNAMENT IMPLICATIONS
With the regular season wrapping up this week, Nevada's fate in terms of seeding in this year's Mountain West Championship remains up in the air. It's a fairly easy breakdown though of what seed the Wolf Pack will get based on the results of these two games against the Falcons.

Lose both - No. 7 seed (would play Sunday at 4:30 p.m.)
Split the series - No. 6 seed (would play Monday at 8 p.m.)
Win both - No. 5 seed (would play Monday at 2:30 p.m.)

DA'JA, DA'JA, DA'JA
Junior Da'Ja Hamilton has established herself as one of the premier players in the Mountain West this season. In the series finale at UNLV, not only did she hit the game-winning 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds on the clock to break a 70-70 tie, but she finished the contest with a career-high 32 points, the first 30-point game of her career. Hamilton's 32 points at UNLV rank as the second-most points in a single game by a Mountain West player this season. In the game she connected on 12-of-23 from the field and was 4-of-7 from the 3-point line, but really caught fire in the fourth quarter. Hamilton's first triple of the game was a half court heave at the buzzer just before halftime, sending Nevada to the locker room trailing by only two. Her other three triples all came in the fourth quarter, helping Nevada to keep pace with UNLV, and eventually, seal the win for the Wolf Pack.

She followed that performance up with two near 20-point games at Boise State, scoring 19 in game one and 18 in game two. Last week during the series against Utah State she scored career point No. 600. Entering this week's series at Air Force, Hamilton is averaging 14.5 points per game, which ranks her eighth in the conference. At 2.9 assists per game, she ranks inside the top 15 in the league in that category.

BIG TIME WIN IN BOISE
The 64-44 victory in Boise over the defending MW tournament champs Boise State was big for the Wolf Pack for many reasons. It snapped an 8-game losing streak to the Broncos that dated back to the 2017-18 season, was just the sixth road win at Boise State in 30 games, marked Nevada's largest margin of victory this season at 20 points, and the Pack defense held the Broncos to a season-low 44 points. Nevada's defense was lights out in the game, also keeping the Broncos to just 2-of-19 from beyond the arc and under 30 percent shooting for the game. The second quarter proved to be the real difference maker in the contest as the Wolf Pack outscored Boise State 17-3 in that quarter and held the Broncos without a made field goal until 30 seconds remained in the period.

ON A ROLL
The Wolf Pack has been one of the best teams in the Mountain West over the last month and is clicking at the right time as conference tournament time looms next week. With two games remaining in the regular season, Nevada has won three in a row and won six of its last eight games. The Pack has two series sweeps, over Wyoming and Utah State, and earned series splits with UNLV and Boise State, two top five teams in the Mountain West.

Last week against Utah State, Nevada outscored its opponent by 36 points between the two games. The Wolf Pack rolled to its largest win of the season in game one, 63-40, giving up a season-low 40 points to the Aggies. Game two was a bit closer, 73-60, but the Wolf Pack still managed a win by double digits. Leta Otuafi was the only Pack player to score in double figures in the sweep, tying her career-high of 16 points in game one and posting 13 points in game two.

MILESTONE WATCH
Nevada has a few players who are approaching milestones, some of whom could hit those numbers over the span of the next two games.

• LaPraisjah Johnson - 23 points shy of 200
• Bethany Carstens - 25 points shy of 400
• Amaya West - 19 points shy of 400
• Nia Alexander - 54 points shy of 800

THE COUNTDOWN IS ON
Nevada head coach Amanda Levens is nearing a milestone in her head coaching career as she is just one win shy of reaching 100 in her career. Levens took over the Wolf Pack in 2017-18 and holds a record of 57-60 while with Nevada. In her two head coaching stints, which includes three plus seasons at Nevada and four seasons at the helm at Southern Illinois, Edwardsville, she owns an overall career record of 99-136. In both head coaching stints she took over struggling programs, attempting to rebuild.

UP NEXT: TOURNEY TIME
Nevada will begin its quest for the program's first Mountain West title next week in Las Vegas at the 2021 Air Force Reserve Mountain West Championship. Seedings will be determined following the Air Force series.