Last Tuesday the Wolf Pack was in the midst of a six-game losing streak and faced the daunting task of taking the conference leading San Diego State. Instead of an anticipated blow out, the Wolf Pack played perhaps its best game of the season and came much closer to upsetting the Aztecs than predicted.

So with what appeared to be a new sense of confidence, Nevada took off to San Jose to play against the lowly Spartans in hopes of ending its seven-game losing streak. In the end, the Wolf Pack was able to pull out a 60-57 victory — notching its first victory in more than a month.

The game was very sloppy, with the Wolf Pack shooting a measly 35 percent from the field and failing to connect on all nine of its three-point attempts. Nevada also committed 19 turnovers and had 27 personal fouls.

“I’m just happy that we won, even if it was sloppy,” junior AJ West told the Reno Gazette Journal after the victory.

West led the charge for the Wolf Pack with a team-high 17 points and 15 rebounds. The center also blocked two shots and continued his dominate play with his 10th double-double of the season and his seventh since conference play started.

The rest of the Wolf Pack struggled to get into the same offensive groove as West, with the other nine Nevada players registering 43 points on a horrid 28 percent shooting clip and committing 15 turnovers. There were several points where it looked as if the team was throwing the game away.

“Honestly, how bad we played, I don’t feel like we won,” guard Tyron Criswell told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’m glad we won, but I don’t feel like we won. We just have to keep building our confidence next time out.”

Nevada turned the ball over five times in one minute and at one point was tied with the Spartans with 15 minutes remaining in the game before going on a 25-22 run to finish. San Jose State is currently 2-21 on the season and is one of four teams who does not have a victory over another Division I team.

“We were trying to win the game too fast,” Criswell said while speaking to the Reno Gazette-Journal. “We tried to put them out of it right away and didn’t take it possession by possession, and that’s when the turnovers started to happen. We didn’t keep our foot on their throat the whole time. We let them back in it and they hit some key threes.”

With the victory Nevada now sits at 7-15 (3-7 MW) and is a winner for the first time in nearly a month. The Wolf Pack will have two games during the upcoming week to continue its winning ways including heading to Logan, Utah to get its second crack at Utah State. On Saturday Nevada will head back home to host the reigning Mountain West Conference tournament champion New Mexico.

““I told the staff, ‘When you’re trying to win a game to break a streak, you’re not going to play perfect because guys are trying too hard to win the game,’” Nevada head coach David Carter said while speaking to the Reno Gazette Journal. “Am I happy with the way we played? No, because I know we could have played better. But we’ll take it. The first game of the second half of conference and we got a win, and it’s only our second road trip were we’ll be happy going home.”

Stone Harper can be reached at sharper@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @StoneHarperNVSB.