RENO - It has come in baby steps, but litle by little, the Nevada men's basketball team is getting the national respect it deserves.
The first step came Monday when the Wolf Pack were ranked 25th in the Associated Press, the first time in school history the school had been ranked in the AP poll. A year ago, Nevada finished 21st in the USA Today/ESPN poll.
Outwardly, the ranking didn't seem to affect the Wolf Pack. Nevada went out and played a super second half en route to a 70-56 thrashing of Tulsa. The win was Nevada's 17th in its last 19 games and seventh straight.
"We're just playing basketball," said senior co-captain Kevin Pinkney, who said he didn't find out about the ranking until just a couple of hours before the game. "Twenty-five or 100, it doesn't matter. We just want to finish the season real good.
"It does mean (we're getting respect). Little by little people are respecting Nevada. We are getting the respect we deserve."
Nevada coach Mark Fox said the recognition is nice, but there are still some important games coming up.
"I want people who follow Nevada to be proud of their team," Fox said. "We have a lot of games to play. We still haven't accomplished anything yet.
"We're playing a game at a time. We have to figure out how to beat Fresno State. We certainly didn't do it the first time (66-63 loss at Lawlor)."
Indeed. The Pack, 13-2 and 21-5, have three games left, all on the road (Fresno State on Saturday, Hawai'i on March 3 and San Jose State on March 5). Nevada leads UTEP by two games, and barring a major collapse, will win the title out right with two wins in its last three games. The 13 wins matches what last year's team accomplished during the regular season.
Fame is fleeting in college basketball, as Kansas found out recently. The Jayhawks lost back-to-back games and dropped five spots in the AP poll, yet most people consider them one of the top two or three teams in the country.
To keep its national ranking for the last week or so of the regular season, the Pack will have to run the table, and that will be no easy feat considering all the games are on the road. Hawai'i is 12-3 at home this year and Fresno State is 10-5 at Save Mart Center, site of last year's WAC post-season tournament.
"There is no doubt in my mind that we can't win the three games on the road," Pinkney said.
'So far we have been pretty good on the road trips," Kyle Shiloh said, backing up his teammates' comment. "We hope to finish the year good."
And, if you look at results to this point, it should happen. Nevada is 6-0 on the road in WAC play and 8-2 overall. Winning on the road is critical when it comes to making the NCAA tournament as an at-large team or getting a high seed.
"They (Nevada) are very good," Tulsa coach Pooh Williamson said. "They know how to win."
