Nevada advances to championship round of Nugget Classic
Nevada guard Dellena Criner led all players Friday with 19 points in the Wolf Pack's 71-63 win against Northern Iowa.
The Wolf Pack clung to a 71-63 victory Friday against Northern Iowa in the first round of the four-team Nugget Classic tournament.
Nevada (3-3) led 16 points early in the second half, but the Panthers came back to get within three points after Northern Iowa (2-2) shooting guard Nicole Clausen nailed a shot from beyond the arc with eight minutes left in the game.
Clausen’s three-pointer was her 18th point of the night, and her last.
Nevada guard Dellena Criner, who committed her fourth foul of the game with 15 minutes left in the second half, guarded Clausen the final eight minutes.
“To a certain degree you have to be a little more timid, but you can put your aggressiveness down,” said Criner, who was one foul from fouling out of the game for the majority of the second half. “It’s a little hard to balance. The whole time coach just kept saying, ‘Don’t foul, don’t foul.’ But then again you have to apply ball pressure because they had good shooters.”
Nevada applied the pressure it needed to in order to win the game.
The Wolf Pack had 13 steals and created 22 turnovers, while its offense committed only 12 turnovers and didn’t allow one steal.
Nevada’s ball handling and defensive intensity were enough to make up for its poor shooting.
The Wolf Pack shot 34 percent from the floor and 61.1 percent from the free-throw line. Nevada connected on one of six free throws in the first half.
“We shot really poorly from the free-throw line,” Nevada head coach Jane Albright said.
For Albright, the win was a momentous event. It marked the 400th victory of her collegiate career.
“I’ve been blessed,” she said after the game. “The Lord has blessed me with a long career.”
Albright is the winningest coach in Wisconsin history (161-107) and Northern Illinois history (188-110). She also coached five years at Wichita State before coming to Nevada. She ranks 39th on the all-time NCAA women’s basketball win list.
“I’m not a coach that thinks about that too much,” she said.
The Wolf Pack’s win moved it into the Nugget Classic championship game. Nevada will play the winner of Louisville and Alabama, which is in progress.
Louisville is ranked seventh in the nation and would be the highest ranked team Nevada has ever played, if Louisville advances.
The match up will pose a tough test for the veteran Nevada squad, especially if senior guard Brandi Jones does not play. Jones suffered an ankle injury in the first half of the Wolf Pack’s win Friday. Jones came back in the game for a brief period before being benched the remainder of the game.
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on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Breaking News, Sports, Women's Basketball.
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