Boxscore Preseason polls determined by both the Western Athletic Conference coaches and media picked Nevada to win the league this season.
The Wolf Pack showed why Saturday night at the Thomas Assembly Center.
Nevada handed Louisiana Tech its worst home loss since the 1995-96 season as the Wolf Pack downed the Bulldogs 79-64 before a crowd of 2,503 at the TAC.
The Wolf Pack hit on 48.3 percent of its shots from the floor (29-60) while holding Tech to a 39.1 (25-64) shooting percentage as freshman forward Nick Fazekas poured in a career-high 25 points and notched his fourth career double-double by adding 10 rebounds to lead the way for Nevada.
Nevada (14-7, 8-4 WAC) didn't waste much time taking control as the Wolf Pack built as much as an eight-point advantage in the opening seven minutes and led by as many as 14 points before taking a 36-26 lead at the half.
"The first 20 minutes told the story," Tech coach Keith Richard said. "The things we needed to do early on to have a chance didn't happen. To be honest, we were probably lucky to be down by only 10 at the half."
Tech (11-10, 5-6 WAC) had sliced the Wolf Pack lead down to seven points at several points in the final five minutes of the first half, but Fazekas put Nevada up by 10 at the break as he rebounded a missed 3-point attempt by teammate Todd Okeson and put in the basket at the buzzer.
"We had a little spell where we had some chances to tighten up before the half," Richard said. "But because we didn't get the job done in getting any closer and that play at the end of the first half, we really came out deflated in the second half."
Tech cut the Nevada advantage to nine at 36-27 on a
Donell Allick free throw 13 seconds into the second half, but that's as close as the Bulldogs would get as the Wolf Pack would build as much as an 18-point advantage on the way to the 15-point win.
Paul Millsap picked up his 14th double-double of the season for Tech with 20 points and 20 rebounds, while
Corey Dean and
Wayne Powell added 14 points each for the Bulldogs.
Kirk Snyder chipped in with 15 points for Nevada while Okeson added 12, but it was Fazekas who did the most damage to the Bulldogs on the night.
"He was amazing," Richard said. "He was whipping Paul and Wayne one-on-one all
night long. One of our points defensively heading into the game was to not let him catch the ball in the post. We were always playing behind on him, and he make the catch and kept on scoring."
The win gave Nevada a regular season sweep of the Bulldogs after winning 71-67 at home on January 8, and also marked the third straight win over Tech for the Wolf Pack.
"If they continue to play like this, they have a real shot at winning this
league," Richard said. "They're destroying people at home and playing like this on the road."
Richard said his team will regroup and be ready to play at Hawaii on Thursday.
"We're still very much a learning and growing team," Richard said. "We just have to regroup and work on getting better. The important thing is that we really need to learn from this game. The game showed us just how tough this conference is."
