Nevada (-2) at Fresno State - 6:00pm Pacific

For the second time this season Nevada will play Fresno State with seven days to prepare.  In the first meeting the Wolfpack throttled Fresno State by 19 points in Reno.  In that game Fresno had starters Renaldo Major, Jonathan Woods, and Terry Pettis (all double digit scorers) available for duty but all three have been suspended since then.  Nevada has won 8 of their last 10 games with only losses coming at Rice and at SMU by a point.  I still consider the Wolfpack to be the top team in the WAC and they still have a decent shot at winning the regular season title and the #1 seed in the conference tournament.  Right now 1.5 games separate 5 teams atop the WAC standings so every game is critical.  Nevada plays their final two games at home where they are undefeated so a win here will put them in a nice position.  Junior forward Kirk Snyder is clearly the best player in the conference.  6-11 freshman center Nick Fazekas has really come on of late.  Four players are averaging in double figures.  Nevada played in the preseason NIT at UConn and also played non-conference road games at Pacific, and at UNLV so they have road experience.

 

Fresno comes in having lost 8 of their last 11 games.  Two of the three wins came vs Tulsa (2nd to last in WAC standings) and the third by one point over SMU (3rd to last in WAC standings).  Major and Woods played their last game on January 31 while Pettis played for the last time on Feb 5.  The team is 2-4 since the trio left the lineup but more concerning is their 0-3 home record during the span.  While Nevada is well rested heading in to this game, Fresno is coming off games at Tulsa, vs East Tennessee State, and at Rice in a span of six days.  Fresno is nothing close to being a deep team with all of the defections.  Expect the Wolfpack to assert themselves to a quality road win here.

 

Nevada  1 UNIT