Eric Musselman
For obvious reasons, Nevada basketball coach Eric Musselman is hoping for a big crowd when the Pack hosts San Diego State tonight (8 p.m., ESPN2).
The Pack has won 11 straight games at Lawlor Events Center dating back to the 2015-16 season, and has won six straight this season.
“We feed off the home crowd,” Musselman told reporters Monday afternoon. “You can see he enthusiasm building. We’ve never walked back to the locker room and felt that the crowd didn’t have an impact.
“We can’t rely on the crowd, but we certainly feed off its enthusiasm. It’s proven in the last year and a half that it’s a difficult place to play. Having said that, we did lose three of our nine conference games last year.”
HALL UPDATE
Musselman said he doesn’t know how freshman forward Josh Hall is doing since suffering a concussion against San Jose State last week.
“I’ve not heard anything for three days,” Musselman said. “I guess everybody is on break.
“He is going to be playing Wednesday, and he’s probably out for an extended period of time.”
As for Elijah Foster, who was suspended after being charged with domestic battery, Musselman had nothing new to report.
INJURED AZTECS
San Diego State stars Malik Pope and Matt Shrigley have been hampered by knee and ankle injuries, respectively, and their status is uncertain for today’s game.
The 6-10 Pope his already missed six games, three at the start of the season, and the last three. The 6-foot-6 Shrigley missed the New Mexico game.
HELP WANTED
The Pack is averaging 78.2 per game, and 66.0 points per game have come from Marcus Marshall, Jordan Caroline, Cameron Oliver, D.J. Fenner and Lindsey Drew.
Obviously Musselman would like a little more help which means freshman Devearl Ramsey and Leland King need to step it up. King did have a double-double against San Jose State and scored eight against Fresno State. Ramsey, at least thus far, has not really looked to score very often.
RPI DROPS
The loss to Fresno State was costly in terms of RPI. The Pack dropped from 36 to 46. Nevada is 8-3 against teams in the top 200.
AZTECS DOMINANT
San Diego State has won 12 of the previous 15 meetings against the Pack, and are 5-2 against Nevada at Lawlor Events Center.
Since joining the Mountain West, SDSU has won all seven meetings against the Pack by an average of 12.9 points. Only five previous meetings have been decided by single digits including the last two at Lawlor — a 65-63 loss in 2015 and a 57-54 loss in 2016.
CHEATHAM ON A ROLL
Zylan Cheatham is on a roll. The 6-9 forward averaged 15.7 points and 9.5 rebounds a contest to lead the Aztecs to the Diamond Head Classic championship over the Christmas break.
Musselman was very impressed with how hard Cheatham plays.
RESILIENT PACK
Under Mussleman, the Wolf Pack has never lost more than two games in a row, doing that just twice. Nevada is 13-2 under Musselman after a loss.
