I went to watch Nevada basketball play New Mexico last night. A couple of observations: For the past five years Nevada has been either in the tournament or on the bubble. They get the most out of their players, they don’t have four and five star recruits. They beat New Mexico last night by playing relentless defense, and going after every rebound. They probably out rebounded New Mexico by 10. I didn’t look at the stats, but I think they are rebounded Utah State also by 10 the other day. When I watch the timeouts, Steve Alfred kind of walks over to the referees and he talks to the referees and the assistant coach Craig Neil, who used to be a coach at New Mexico and took them to the NCAA tournament and finished a season ranked 17th frequently runs the huddle. He’s frequently standing, yelling directions, all the assistants are up, shouting out directions. They play hard, and the players play good solid aggressive defense. Great ball movement.
The coaching staff at Syracuse is HOT GARBAGE. If Syracuse had the same players that they have right now, and Nevadas coaching staff…they win a lot of games. One more thing, I was telling my friend that the shooting guard on Syracuse shoots 50% from the free-throw line, he looked at me like I was crazy…. and it is crazy. How do you have a shooting guard on a power five team that cannot shoot a free throw? Unbelievable.
