Men’s basketball preview against Fresno State
Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – On paper, the Nevada men’s basketball team’s matchup against Fresno State in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday is on a neutral court.
But coaches and some fans believe the Pan American Center might be the temporary home for the Fresno State Bulldogs.
“If we can keep it close in the first half, we’ll probably have 9,000 fans,” Fresno State coach Steve Cleveland said. “If it says competitive I expect to have a few fans.”
The game is set for 5 p.m. PST and will be TV on KAME charter cable channel 7 in Reno.
Cleveland said with the New Mexico State playing Idaho in the game after Nevada plays Fresno State, some fans may come early and root against the Wolf Pack.
Nevada is the only WAC team to win at New Mexico State and the only team to beat the Aggies twice. That’s plenty of reason to root against them, some Aggie fans said.
“There’s no way I’m rooting for Nevada,” Las Cruces resident Ray Narvaez said. “We haven’t beat them this year, (Nevada) matches up well against us for some reason.. I’ll root for Fresno. It will be an exciting game.”
Nevada and New Mexico State were strong rivals last year as each team won a game during the regular season.
New Mexico State fans rooted against Nevada in the semifinals of last year’s WAC Tournament and Utah State ended up beating the Wolf Pack. New Mexico State beat Utah State and went to the NCAA Tournament.
Nevada, though, garners some hatred wherever it goes because of its success. Nevada’s won or had a share of the last five WAC regular season crowns and has gone to four straight NCAA Tournaments.
“Because we’ve won so much in this league I don’t plan for any of them to root for us at all,” Nevada coach Mark Fox said. “I’d like to think that some other people around the league would root for us, but I can’t control that.”
But to the players, which court they play on doesn’t matter.
It’s the WAC Tournament and they’ll play for a chance at the NCAA Tournament anywhere.
“I’m just worried about Fresno,” senior Marcelus Kemp said, when asked about the fans.
Guard Lyndale Burleson’s response to the question was a matter of him not caring.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We play in so many places and people are yelling and screaming all the time so we’re kind of used to it. I don’t know what they’ll do.”
Nevada is 7-8 on the road this year and hasn’t played a neutral-court game this season.
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on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 7:19 pm and is filed under 2008 WAC Tournament Coverage, Men's Basketball, Sports.
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© 2008 The Nevada Sagebrush
March 13th, 2008 at 11:58 am
[...] Reno Gazette-Journal did a preview similar to mine. Steve Sneddon took the quotes from my questions to Steve Cleveland, which was about the atmosphere [...]