Pack gears up for Utah State

RENO - The Nevada Wolf Pack understands as well as anyone that the Western Athletic Conference doesn't hand out championships in early February.

"We still haven't done much," senior center Dario Hunt said. "We're still not in the Top 25, we still don't have a ring, we still don't have a championship."

The Wolf Pack, though, has just about everything else right now as the calendar flips into February.

The Pack, which hosts Utah State today and Idaho on Saturday at Lawlor Events Center (both 7:05 p.m. starts), is now 18-3 overall and 7-0 in the WAC and seemingly on its way to becoming one of the most celebrated teams in school history.

This is the first Wolf Pack team to go undefeated in the first half of a WAC season. The Pack has won 15 games in a row and is just one victory short of the school's longest winning streak (16 in 1965-66). The 18-3 record is the school's second best start through 21 games (the 2006-07 team was 19-2) and the 18 victories by Feb. 1 are the second most behind the 20 by the 2006-07 team.

That 2006-07 team, by the way, is also the last Pack team to go to the NCAA Tournament.

"Other (Wolf Pack) teams might not have had as long a winning streak as we have but they have banners up there," said Hunt of the Lawlor Events Center rafters. "That's what I want. I want to put a banner up there before I leave here."

The Pack, with nine regular season games and at least one WAC Tournament game remaining this season, is also just five victories away from becoming just the fourth team in school history to improve its victory total from one year to the next by at least 10. The 1951-52 team won 10 more than the previous season, the 1942-43 team won 13 more and the 1945-46 team holds the school record with a 20-victory improvement in just one year.

"After the season is over I will look back and reflect," coach David Carter said. "But all this means is that we're playing well right now. We still have a long way to go."

The Wolf Pack, thanks to its perfect record in the first half of the WAC season, has gone from the hunter to the hunted in just one season.

"That's OK," Hunt said. "We've had a target on our backs all season. We're in first place. Everybody wants to be in first place and everyone wants to come in here and get a win against us."

"We expect every team we play the rest of the year to make adjustments," junior guard Malik Story said. "All teams do that after you play them once. That's why it is important that we don't take teams lightly. They are going to put things in that are new, that we haven't seen before and we're just going to have to adjust."

One team the Wolf Pack will never take lightly is Utah State. The Pack beat Utah State in Logan, Utah, 79-71, back on Jan. 7. It was just the Pack's third victory in Logan in school history since the rivalry began in 1935.

The Wolf Pack never trailed in the game as Deonte Burton scored 25 points, including a pivotal 3-pointer with 41 seconds to play for a 73-68 lead. The Pack out-rebounded the smaller Aggies, 34-24.

"That was a big win for us," Story said. "It showed we could go on the road and win in a tough environment."

The Aggies (12-10, 4-3), just 2-8 away from home, are hoping to do the same on Thursday. Utah State will come to Reno desperate for a victory since a loss will all but wipe out their chances for a WAC regular season title, a championship they have won the past four seasons.

"We know we'll get their best shot," Story said.

Carter said the Aggies are similar to the Wolf Pack a year ago.

"They are inexperienced this year, like we were last year," Carter said. "It takes time to learn how to win on the road. That inexperience can cost you games."

Carter and the Pack players were asked this week if it might benefit them to lose a game before the WAC tournament in March. The Pack could have an eye-opening 24-game winning streak and 27-3 record going into the WAC postseason party in Las Vegas.

"There's no question we'd rather be undefeated (in WAC play)," Hunt said. "We never want to lose. We had enough losing last year. We don't want to lose any more games."

"Our goal is to win each game in the WAC," senior Olek Czyz said.

Carter hinted that a loss somewhere along the line before the WAC Tournament might not be the worst thing to happen to his team.

"It's a fine line," he smiled. "Every game you want to play as hard as you and give yourself a chance to win. And I'm never going to coach a game to lose. But sometimes it's good to lose one just to get that hunger back, that desire to win. And you have to understand that it's not necessarily a bad thing if it does happen."

The Pack hasn't lost a game in 69 days, since a 76-50 loss to BYU in suburban Chicago in the Chicago Invitational Challenge. The longest stretch in school history without a loss is 72 days by the 1965-66 team that went from Dec. 23 to March 4 without a setback.

"It feels good to be where we're at," Hunt said. "But we know we still have to keep working hard."

"If we don't focus on what we have to do right now," Story said. "The things we want to happen in March won't happen."