Basketball team must perform in second half

By: Lukas Eggen

Monday, December 7, 2009 - 9:43 PM

The men’s basketball team is only six games into head coach David Carter’s reign, yet a troubling trend is already developing. In three of the team’s four losses this season, the Wolf Pack held a lead in the second half, yet faltered down the stretch and gave away the game.

Nevada averages four points fewer in second halves than it does in first halves (41.2 points to 37).

Coupled with the fact that the Wolf Pack shoots 46.6 percent in first half of games, but only 42.4 percent in the second half, including four games in which it shot less than 40 percent, it’s no wonder that Nevada is 2-4 on the season and struggling to find its identity.

This trend must stop. If it continues the basketball team will be in very dire straits at the end of the season.

The Wolf Pack blew a double-digit lead against No. 24 University of Nevada, Las Vegas and leads with less than eight minutes left in games against then-No. 10 North Carolina and Pacific.
Even in its victories, Nevada’s had lackluster performances in the second half. Against Houston, the Wolf Pack gave up a 22-point lead in the second half, only to let the Cougars pull to within six late in the game.

Why exactly has the Wolf Pack struggled so much in the second half?

Nevada has a variety of problems: It has committed 80 turnovers on the season, while forcing only 60. That means Nevada has given its opponents 20 extra possessions to score, use the clock and keep the Wolf Pack’s potent offense from scoring.

Of those 80, forward Luke Babbitt and guard Armon Johnson account for more than half (43).

If the team’s leaders continue to be so cavalier with the ball, it will be almost impossible for the Wolf Pack to gain any momentum whatsoever.

The team seems to get easily frustrated in the second half and forces bad shots, meaning the misses start to pile up.

Players play much tighter and settle for difficult jump shots, abandoning any game plan they had in order to chuck up some ill-advised jumpers. And any time a team is simply throwing up shots, you know the team’s about to get creamed.

Perhaps the most troubling trend is that the Wolf Pack also gets out-worked in the second halves of games. Other teams just appear to have more energy at the end of games, pointing to the fact that the Wolf Pack is running out of gas in the second half.

If Nevada wants to win games down the stretch, instead of trying to build a big enough lead in the first half to hold onto later on, it must change its ways soon.

Coach Carter needs to keep his team calm and collected. Nevada plays fine in the first half, but Carter must work on having the players deal with the pressure of a close game down the stretch.

Forced shots will not do the Wolf Pack any good and being able to keep calm can be the difference between making the NCAA Tournament and watching it from home.

Everyone needs to step up, but especially Babbitt and Johnson. As the leaders of the team, they have to lead by example for the rest of the team.

When they begin to turn the ball over and force shots, is it really surprising that the rest of the team follows suit?

The biggest thing is that Nevada cannot get outworked. Letting teams come back from 12- and 22-point deficits in the second half is unacceptable. Players must be ready to play for the full 40 minutes, otherwise the team will burn out in the end.

That lies on the players. They need to be able to find the motivation to play well in the second half as well as the first half.

This is NCAA basketball, after all. Players should not be having this much trouble finding motivation to play well the whole game.

The Wolf Pack has too much talent to lose simply because the team doesn’t have enough drive to finish the game. It’s enough to make a fan pull his or her hair out when Nevada continues to blow lead after lead after lead.

With four players averaging more than 10 points per game and with the emergence of forward Joey Shaw and guard Ray Kraemer, the Wolf Pack should not be struggling to score at the end of games.

If this trend continues, Nevada will be nothing more than a middle-of-the-pack team that never quite tapped into its potential. Coach Carter needs to get this team ready to play, or this will be one long winter.

Lukas Eggen can be reached at leggen@nevadasagebrush.com.