Singer Willie Nelson can't wait to get on the road again. Author Jack Kerouac romanticized going out on the open road and introduced 1940s and 50s America to the beat generation.
The Nevada Wolf Pack, on the other hand, simply goes out on the road and gets beat.
"We haven't been very successful on the road," head coach David Carter said, summing up the Wolf Pack men's basketball season thus far.
When the Wolf Pack leaves the friendly confines of Lawlor Events Center, bad things usually happen. The Pack, which plays at San Jose State today and at Hawaii on Monday, is 1-11 on the road this year.
"Learning how to win on the road is a process," said Carter, whose Wolf Pack teams are 7-22 away from home over the last two seasons and 23-5 at home. "It doesn't happen overnight. But we're getting there."
The number of different ways the Pack has lost on the road this season has almost equaled the number of different hotels and airports they've visited.
Two of the 11 losses were total disasters (90-60 at Washington and 82-65 at South Dakota State).
The offense disappeared in the final two minutes of an 80-74 loss at Fresno State and in a 76-75 loss to Pepperdine. It vanished in the final seven minutes of the second half in a 58-56 loss at George Washington and in the first seven minutes of the second half in a 64-61 loss at Houston.
The offensive dry spell in a 66-57 loss to Boston took place in the last five minutes of the first half.
And the offense never showed up at all against Pacific (64-53) and Utah State (67-45).
The first four minutes of the game against Portland (66-62) were a mess and the first four minutes of the second half at Idaho (72-67) were equally as ugly.
"Teams at their home are much harder to play," said junior center Dario Hunt, who led the Pack with 16 points and 19 rebounds in an 89-69 victory over San Jose State at Lawlor Events Center last Saturday. "We know we're going to get their best shot when we go to their place."
The Wolf Pack has struggled on the road before.
The Pack went 6-36 over three consecutive seasons (1998-2001) away from home under coaches Pat Foster and Trent Johnson. Foster's 1993-94 team and Johnson's 2000-01 teams each went 1-13 away from home. Jack Spencer's 1970-71 and 1971-72 teams were a combined 1-27 outside of northern Nevada with the 1970-71 team holding the dubious record for Pack road kill at 0-13.
"When we're at home we're just more comfortable," said Hunt of the Pack's 8-3 record at Lawlor this year. "Our shots seem to fall a little more."
The Wolf Pack's ultimate road warrior might have been 7-footer Nick Fazekas. None of Fazekas' four Wolf Pack teams (2003-07) had a losing record on the road, going 46-21 away from home combined. The only Pack team without Fazekas to have a winning record on the road in the last 29 seasons was the 2008-09 team which finished 8-5 away from Lawlor.
Carter was a Pack assistant under head coach Mark Fox during the Fazekas years.
"Those teams had a lot more maturity and experience," Carter said. "They were able to block out the crowd noise and the distractions. They understood that going on the road is a business. Those were very mature kids."
Arguably the greatest road performance in Wolf Pack history took place on Dec. 1, 2005 in a 72-70 victory at Kansas, a place where few visiting teams ever win. That Pack team featured seniors Mo Charlo and Chad Bell, juniors Kyle Shiloh, Denis Ikovlev, DeMarshay Johnson and Fazekas and sophomores Marcellus Kemp, Ramon Sessions and David Ellis.
"We had lost at Kansas by 33 (85-52) the year before so those kids took it as a challenge," Carter said. "And they welcomed the challenge. They fed off the energy from the crowd. They looked forward to quieting the crowds."
Carter said his young team (two freshman, a sophomore and two juniors in the starting lineup) is beginning to develop that same mentality on the road.
"The road trip to Boise and Idaho (Jan. 12-15), we had that," Carter said. "This team is a different team on the road than it was earlier in the year. Our first road trip to Los Angeles, we had a lot of distractions because a lot of the guys are from there. It was a learning experience for them, being on the road for the first time. But they are starting to get the right mentality and approach on the road now. We've gotten better on the road with every trip."
That first road trip - five games (all losses) in two weeks in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and South Dakota - buried this young team. It would have been a difficult stretch for any team, let alone a team with just one player (Hunt) with extensive experience at the Division I level. The 2008-09 team that owns the last Pack winning record on the road, for example, never played more than two games in a row on the road.
Pack freshman point guard Deonte Burton said playing on the road is the toughest thing for a freshman to learn at the college level.
"Yes, definitely," Burton said. "The environment you play in on the road is tough. Teams come out with more energy and intensity against you. You don't get that in high school that much."
The Pack isn't the only Western Athletic Conference team to struggle on the road. Just two teams (Utah State at 8-3 and Idaho at 6-5) have winning records away from home. The Pack's next two road opponents over the next three days each have winning records at home - San Jose State is 5-4 and Hawaii is 10-4.
"Those are big road games," Burton said. "We have to get them. It's a business trip."
He's learning.
The Pack has won eight of its last nine games at San Jose State and three of its last four at Hawaii.
"Anytime you can win at Hawaii, it's always a big win," said Carter, whose Wolf Pack are just a half game behind New Mexico State (7-4) for second place in the WAC with six games to play. "These next two games are important. If we can win these two it's going to put us in a good position."
