Nevada
sent packing in second round
By Chris
Burgess, Outpost
staff
The second round wasn't kind
to either of the basketball teams from the University of
Nevada during the 2000 Big West Tournament.
In this package
The men: last minute
entrants
While Utah State triumphed over New Mexico State 71-66 in the men's bracket and Santa Barbara defeated Long Beach 79-69 in the women's championship game, both the men and the women's teams were knocked out of the tournament in the second round.
Terrance Green drives past Long Beach State
defenders in the Wolf Pack's first game.
Click image to view
video.
Video by
Stu
McCann
While both the men's and women's teams were selected to
finish at or near the bottom of the Big West in a preseason
poll of coaches and media, the team's arrived at the
tournament in very different positions. By just making it to
the tournament thanks to a last minute winning streak, the
men's team defied many of their critics. On the other hand,
the women came into the tournament with the pressure and
expectations that came with the West's No. 1 seed.
When the Nevada men's basketball team took out the Big West Western Division's No. 2 seed, UC Santa Barbara, 85-78 in the tournament's first round, Pack Coach Trent Johnson said that the team had already accomplished more than most people expected.
"Nobody expected us to be here," Johnson said. "We were a unanimous selection by coaches and the experts, if the experts are the media, to finish last. That's (our performance) not a tribute to me. That's a tribute to these kids."
All season long, the Pack had been forced to rely on young, unproven players. With a new head coach and only four players returning from last year's team, the Pack received almost a complete overhaul this season. Two of the Pack's usual starters, guard Terrance Green and center Matt Ochs, were freshmen. Two more starters, point guard Adrian McCullough and forward Richard Stirgus were junior college transfers playing their first season of NCAA Division 1 basketball. Only guard Tommy Zapata, last year's lone returning starter, brought any actual Division 1 experience to the starting lineup.
As the young, underdog team in its division, Pack coach Trent Johnson said that there was nothing for the Pack to lose in the Big West Tournament.
"I'm concerned about our guys getting better and trying to do what we do," Johnson said. "If that's not good enough, so be it. We're in a situation right now where we won four out of five. We're going to continue to try and be aggressive, continue to try and put our best foot forward and see what happens."
Because of his team's youth and inexperience, Johnson had placed little value on the Pack's record all season, instead preferring to measure the Pack by its growth. After the Pack's loss to eventual Big West Tournament Champion Utah State, Johnson credited his team for its persistence throughout the season.
"They've been doing it all year," Johnson said. "Like I said, when you're fighting for a program and you've got new kids, you've got to earn a lot of respect. You've got to battle. You've got to do better than the odds. We were almost there tonight."
Though expectations will be higher as the Pack continues to gain experience in coming seasons, simply showing up ready to play each game and not focusing on losses was a positive for Johnson.
"When you go through the preseason schedule we have, and you take your lumps like we take them, and they continue to believe that they can play at this level, and continue to bounce back and continue to work out, that's a tribute to them."
The women: the West's number one seed
Though the women, like the
men, were picked to finish near the bottom of the Big West,
the makeup of the women's team was very different from that
of the men. The Pack's Head Coach, Ada Gee was entering her
seventh season at the team's helm. The team returned eight
letterwinners from last year's team including three
starters. Though the Pack had only one senior on the squad,
point guard Antionette Bryant, the women's team was much
more experienced than the men's with four juniors and four
sophomores in addition to four freshmen.
On the web Official
women's basketball site
University
of Nevada, Reno official athletic site
Unlike the men, the women also enjoyed much more success this season. While the men took a 6-19 record into the tournament, the women had an 18-9 record and the Big West's Eastern Division title. All of these factors, added to the Pack's 89-64 defeat of Cal Poly in the tournament's first round, made for higher expectations for the women's team that appeared to be playing at it's peak rather than struggling to simply make the tournament.
"We are peaking," said Pack guard Angie Heer after the Pack's win over Cal Poly. "I think we still haven't shown our best. I think that's still to come. That'll be next game."
"It was definitely a great game for us to start off on."
After appearing to be at the top of its game one night, another top seeded team, No. 2 seed Long Beach State, and a player that was a match up nightmare, proved to be more than the Pack could handle. 6-foot-8-inch Rhonda Smith and her 29 points put an end to the Pack's dream season and its high expectations.
A clearly shaken Gee tried to explain the defeat in the post game press conference.
"We battled tonight," Gee said. "We didn't do some of the little things that we needed to do. We've never given up 97 points. Certainly Smith had an excellent night. She's very difficult to defend."
Even after the loss, Gee said that the Pack's ability to ignore the preseason predictions of the press and media on its way to the Eastern Division title and No. 1 seed showed the team's true character though they didn't go as far as they wanted.
"I think it's a tribute to our players," Gee said. "They chose to really show that they loved the underdog role. They didn't just accept being picked to finish fourth in the East."
Posted
March 17, 2000
Copyright 2000
Nevada Outpost
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