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Nevada beat La Tech last night to go 3-0 in the WAC. The game was at La Tech, so that was a big win for Nevada, and makes tomorrow night that much more important for SMU. Can't let Nevada sweep the road trip and go 4-0 or the race might be over for SMU early. Truly another must win.

It looks to me like Nevada is extremely strong down low with Fazekas and the senior forward whose name escapes me right now. This will be a good test to see if Castro can keep up the pace.

It wil be good to have a meaningful home game at SMU in the conference race (football or bball), even if it is early, its been a while. Probably two years since we have had one.

Hopefully the students will turn out and make it LOUD!

Go Mustangs!

will the students be back in town? I heard school started back up middle of next week.

Kevin Pinkney and Jermaine Washington are the senior forwards on either side of Fazekas. Pinkney is 6'10", and Washington is about 6'6". All 3 are shooting better than 55% from the floor, and between the 3 of them they grab about 20 rebounds per game.

Nevada's weakness is its backcourt. Young, and sometimes selfish, lazy and sloppy, the wolfpacks guards are their weak link. If a team can deny the entry passes into the low post, and force the guards to shoot or turn the ball over, Nevada is beatable. Hawaii did a very good job of anticipating and intercepting Nevada's passes last week, but lost their lead in the final seconds after some controversial foul calls.

Deny the entry pass. Give backside help on the posts if we are in man-to-man. Box out [deleted] Fazekas, Pinkney, and Washington. Pressure their guards, they'll make mistakes.

Thats all for now.

The XtC wrote:Deny the entry pass. Give backside help on the posts if we are in man-to-man. Box out [deleted] Fazekas, Pinkney, and Washington. Pressure their guards, they'll make mistakes.

That sounds like half court defense, something that Tubbs promised we'd be better at this year. Hope we are.

That's a pretty accurate report.

teams tried to zone Nevada early in the year because the guards can't shoot. But Fazekas and Pinkney absolutely destroy zones with their hi-lo play and offensive rebounding.

Best bet is to do what Hawaii did and make it as difficult as possible to get the ball into the post.

The guards have no offensive game at all but they're tough. Sessions, the freshman PG, will be a good one. He outscored Hawaii 6-0 in the final minute of that game to give Nevada a 3 point win. He is also second in the WAC in assists and third in the WAC in assists/turnover ratio.
Shiloh is a great defender but has 0 offensive skills. Charlo is often out of control and can look great one night and like the worst player in the WAC on another.

I'd expect SMU to come out on top in this one but I'll take the road split.

I saw the Nevada/Hawaii game the other night. Both teams look pretty good. Nevada is obviously not as as good as last year but both teams will be in the hunt for the title I suspect.

It will be interesting ~ probably the same deal...whoever can survive the road wins the WAC.

Faz is a very good player. If they still had Synder, it would be pretty sick.

Fazekas is a MAN inside; just keeps going to the basket and scoring. He hits his freethrows too.

Nevada can line up 7'-1", 7'-0", 6'-11", and 6'-10". They rebound well and swat a ton of shots away from guys who typically don't experience this.

Good luck,
LATech

.....do we draw 3500 for this BIG GAME??

HixsontoLeVias wrote:.....do we draw 3500 for this BIG GAME??

Lets hope so, Should be a great test no doubt. Lets hope we can pull one off! Go Stangs Go!

If classes start next week, then dorms should reopen today or sometime around then. Students should be on campus, but will end up being too busy getting drunk with their SMU buds. Then there will be the AWESOME select few who attend the game.

Regardless, I've never had much hope for the student population, but they always turn out for Bobby Knight. Strange...

The band will be there playing our brains out once again. We need to win this.

hey BarbarAnn, ever sneak any Neil Peart licks in?

silverpack wrote: .... I'd expect SMU to come out on top in this one but I'll take the road split.

Hope you're right!

And jtstang, our halfcourt defense is vastly improved. Whether it's improved enough remains to be seen. But Coach Tubbs has added an interesting wrinkle to the perimeter D this year: defending on the perimeter. No more days of wide-open 3s for ever opponent.

HixsontoLeVias wrote:.....do we draw 3500 for this BIG GAME??

Probably not, unless you have season tickets or visit this board, I doubt you know about this "BIG" game as you call it tonight. No pregame article or anything in the DMN today. They ran are rousing feature of Baylor womens basketball, and pictures of TCU's big womens victory last night. I'm not the one who always complains about coverage, but its pretty remarkable. Then tomorrow, everybody will wonder where the crowd was.

Hoop Fan wrote:

HixsontoLeVias wrote:.....do we draw 3500 for this BIG GAME??

Probably not, unless you have season tickets or visit this board, I doubt you know about this "BIG" game as you call it tonight. No pregame article or anything in the DMN today.

Actually there was a brief blurb under the heading "College Briefs"...not exactly great advertising, but then that's not the DMN's job.

Mustangs host Nevada men in WAC game

12:37 AM CST on Saturday, January 8, 2005


By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News



SMU has its first major WAC test Saturday night, when the Mustangs (7-4, 2-1) host Nevada (10-3, 3-0).

Nevada and SMU split regular-season games last season, with the Mustangs winning at Moody Coliseum in overtime.