The Women’s Basketball program at Nevada has been second fiddle to the men’s team led by Eric Musselman since he came to the school in 2015. While the men have enjoyed success, the women have been on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. The women had back-to-back tenth place finishes in the Mountain West Conference in 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. In the preseason they were picked to finish tenth once again, as voted by the 11 coaches in the conference and media.
Friday night the women’s squad beat San Diego State on its regular season finale. The second-half comeback gave Nevada their 14th win them finish with a sub-.500 record proving many of the doubters wrong as they finished with their best record in four seasons. The win clinched the seventh seed in the conference going into this week’s Mountain West Tournament in Vegas.
In head coach Amanda Levens’ first season, the Wolf Pack had its fair share of positives and negatives.
Negatives
Nevada lost six straight games and eight of nine during the heart of Mountain West competition. The string of losses derailed the Wolf Pack’s season and showed that the Pack needed to improve its in-conference play in the future.
Along with struggles in conference, Nevada struggled on the road only winning thrice in 12 games away from Lawlor. Late game execution is something that cost the Wolf Pack heavily this season.
Lastly Nevada will lose its top two scorers, Teige Zeller and T Moe, after this season. Both Zeller and Moe averaged double figures for the Pack this season in their final year in the silver and blue.
Positives
Levens rejuvenated a Nevada team that had been sinking for the previous three seasons. While on their way to their best record since 2013-14, Nevada enjoyed spurts from the fountain of success.
The team played a tougher non-conference schedule this season than the season prior and frankly had over achieved. A 7-4 start to the season, gave Wolf Pack fans hope for the rest of the season. Nevada also enjoyed a five-game winning streak early in the season, with four of those wins coming by double digits. ten of their 13 wins were by double digits. When the Pack got hot it was almost impossible to slow them down.
The Wolf Pack showed in its wins as well as in its losses that it was going to compete every game. Eight of the team’s 15 losses were by six points or less. If they win half of those games, they finish the season over .500 and set the ceiling even higher for next season.
The Wolf Pack countered their lackluster away record with an exceptional home record with 11 wins at Lawlor Events Center.
Although they are losing their top two scorers Nevada is not expected to lose much of their offensive firepower as guards Jade Redmon and Camariah King are primed to take over as the foundation of the offense.
Nevada played San Diego State again last night in first game of the Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas. The Wolf Pack won 95-84 in overtime and will face arch-rival UNLV tonight at 6 P.M. in the quarterfinals.
