Missouri Valley Conference Basketball

NIT First Round Recap - Wichita State vs Nevada

(6) Nevada 74, (3) Wichita State 70

This was not a good night to be a Missouri Valley Conference basketball fan.

On the same night that Illinois State, the third-place team in the Valley, lost by 21 points at Dayton, an even more shocking event - pun intended - occurred at Charles Koch Arena in Wichita, Kan.

The Wichita State Shockers have endured their ups and downs in the 2009-2010 college basketball season, but despite all their struggles - which were enough to deny them a spot in the NCAA Tournament - there was one thing coach Gregg Marshall's team could count on: its home court. WSU went 17-0 during the regular season in its rounded and intimate building, with rabid fans right on top of the action and always able to rattle a visiting opponent.

Well, until now, that is.

The Nevada Wolf Pack marched into America's Breadbasket and handed Wichita State its first and only home loss of the season on Wednesday night, spoiling an NIT party by digging out a four-point triumph. Coach David Carter led the second-place team in the Western Athletic Conference to a surprising conquest that will leave Wichita scratching its head well into the offseason. The stunned Shockers weren't expected to win the NIT or even get to New York; the reality of a No. 3 seed is that it guarantees only one home game, which meant that WSU was going to have to go on the road in future rounds of the NIT. Yet, this inability to protect home court will erode the program's confidence. If anyone still thought that Wichita deserved an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament alongside auto-bid winner and Valley tournament champion Northern Iowa, this game should have fully, finally and forcefully dispelled such notions.

The long and short of this particular story is that Nevada was more physical and intense, despite playing in Wichita's own building. Nevada earned five more foul shots on the road, which is - if not remarkable - certainly noteworthy. Instructively, it should be added that while Wichita hit only 8 of 13 free throws, Nevada converted 17 of 18, a terrific rate to be sure.

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To further underscore Nevada's physical superiority, it's worth pointing out that on a night when neither team hit all that many threes (five for Nevada and six for WSU) or made at least 30 percent of its tries beyond the arc, the Wolf Pack were still able to shoot 50 percent from the field for the game. This meant that the visitors from the WAC hit 21 of 35 2-point field goals, good for a 60-percent conversion rate. When a team is hitting 60 percent of its two-point shots, one can rest in the sure knowledge that its big men are doing the job near the rim.

Nevada star Luke Babbitt used his 6-foot-9 frame to play over the top against Wichita's defense, en route to 23 points. Babbitt's teammate, beefy forward Dario Hunt, hit 4 of 5 field goals in a highly efficient 10-point, seven-rebound performance. With those kinds of step-up showings from his roster, Carter had to love what he saw from the team he's coaching. Nevada gets most of its main guns back in the fall of 2010, which is part of the reason why this win has to be so encouraging for the Wolf Pack program.

Encouraging is exactly what this game wasn't for Wichita State, which must now face the end of its somewhat disappointing season.

WHAT'S NEXT

Nevada takes on second-seeded Rhode Island in the second round of the NIT. The game will be in New England, and more precisely, Kingston, R.I. Nevada will see if it can cook up some road-show magic for the second straight game in the tournament. The tip time is 8:05 Eastern, with ESPNU providing coverage.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer