Santoro: March once again meaningful for Wolf Pack

Sports Fodder:

March Madness is about to descend upon Northern Nevada once again. The Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball team is likely just a handful of victories away from returning to the NCAA Tournament next month for the first time since 2019. The Pack, now 19-6 overall and 9-3 in the Mountain West, might need to win just four of its last six regular-season games to clinch one of the 36 at-large bids in the 68-team field. Four wins the rest of the way and a win in the Mountain West tournament, leaving the Pack at 24 wins, would likely clinch it. The four wins in the regular season shouldn’t be all that difficult. There’s two games against Fresno State (9-14 overall, 5-7 in league), one at home against San Jose State (14-10, 5-6) and one on the road at Wyoming (7-16, 2-9). That’s four wins right there. Fresno State can’t score, Wyoming can’t beat anybody (but Fresno State), and the Pack has already beaten San Jose State on the road in a blowout (72-51). A road game at Utah State and a home matchup against UNLV will be all-out fights but both are winnable for the Pack since it already beat Utah State at home rather easily (85-70) and is 11-0 at home and hungry for revenge against UNLV. The Pack, which is on a three-game winning streak and coming off a landmark win at New Mexico (77-76 on Tuesday), wouldn’t likely have to win a Mountain West tournament game to get to the NCAA Tournament if it ends the regular season with a nine-game winning streak and 25 wins already in the bank.

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Of course, getting to the NCAA Tournament is a thrill that could only last less than a week. Even the Wolf Pack’s talented and loaded 2019 team (29 wins), after all, lost in the first round (a mystery that still haunts the Pack to this day). The Pack, therefore, has a lot to play for the next  month, like Mountain West regular-season and tournament championships. Flags, as every fantasy manager knows, fly forever. The Pack is just a game behind San Diego State (19-5, 10-2) in the regular-season race. The Aztecs have two very difficult league games remaining, against New Mexico and Boise State on the road. A No. 1 seed in the Mountain West tournament also looks good on a team’s NCAA résumé.

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The Mountain West put four teams (San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and Wyoming) into the NCAA Tournament a year ago. The Pack is, without question, one of the top five teams in the league right now, along with San Diego State, Boise State, New Mexico and Utah State, four teams the Pack has already beaten this year. All five could go to the NCAA Tournament. The Pack, which deserves to climb into the Associated Press and Coaches’ Poll Top 25 rankings with a win over Fresno State on Friday at home, is currently No. 31 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings. There should be no way the Pack is left out of the NCAA Tournament if that ranking holds steady. San Diego State is No. 22, while Boise State is No. 27, Utah State is No. 33 and New Mexico is No. 38. The Mountain West is getting a lot of respect this season from the computers.

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The win at New Mexico will go a long way toward getting the Pack into the NCAA Tournament. Victories on the road against quality teams (New Mexico is 19-5, with two of the losses to the Pack) are rated very highly by the NET rankings. The Lobos are now 14-2 at home. Their other home loss was to UNLV, a fact the Pack needs to keep in mind when the Rebels come to town March 4. The Wolf Pack also doesn’t have a horrible loss this year, another NET ranking red flag. They’ve lost to San Diego State, Boise State, Loyola Marymount, Oregon and UNLV on the road and Kansas State in the Cayman Islands. Nothing to be ashamed of there. The only team in that bunch with fewer than 16 wins is Oregon, which is 14-10 and plays an extremely difficult schedule (another factor the NET rankings value highly). Bad losses the rest of the way for the Pack would be against Fresno State (twice), Wyoming and San Jose State. The Pack avoids those losses and all will be fine come NCAA Tournament selection time.

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There is no clear-cut favorite in Sunday’s Super Bowl. There is no home team like the last two Super Bowls with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams. There is no Cinderella story like the Cincinnati Bengals last year. Both teams have even won a Super Bowl in the last five editions, something that has happened just three times before. The first time was Super Bowl X between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, when the Steelers won the year before and Dallas won four years before. Those two teams did it again in Super Bowl XIII, when Dallas won the year before and the Steelers won three years before. The only other time it happened before this year was Super Bowl XVIII between the Los Angeles Raiders and Washington Redskins, when the Raiders won three years before and the Redskins won the year before.

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The Eagles have the better offense and defensive lines. The Chiefs have the better quarterback and the better head coach. The Eagles have the better running game while the Chiefs have the better passing game. The Eagles’ path to the Super Bowl (beating a mediocre New York Giants team and a San Francisco 49ers team that didn’t have a quarterback) was paved with more gold than the one Dorothy traveled upon in the Wizard of Oz. So are they battle-tested? The Chiefs could have easily lost either of their playoff games to Cincinnati and Jacksonville. So, have they just been lucky? Both quarterbacks are slightly injured, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes with a bum ankle and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts with a wonky shoulder. It’s almost impossible to separate these two teams.

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The gut feeling here is that Mahomes will solidify himself as this generation’s (the one without Tom Brady) best quarterback with another Super Bowl win this Sunday. Chiefs 34, Eagles 28 sounds about right. Mahomes, for some reason, still doesn’t get the credit he deserves. This is his third Super Bowl in the last four years. He is 10-3 in the postseason in his career, with the losses coming against Brady (twice) and Joe Burrow. He is 64-16 in the regular season. The guy beat the Bengals in the AFC title game on one good leg. Don’t bet against Patrick Mahomes. Hurts is talented and getting better by the week. But he’ll never be Patrick Mahomes, even if he wins on Sunday.

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Now that the Brooklyn Nets have traded away James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, have we seen the end of NBA teams trying to buy championships by simply collecting superstars? The Harden-Irving-Durant trio only played on the court for 16 games together in Brooklyn. They were teammates for less than two full seasons and Irving spent the bulk of that time avoiding a COVID vaccine. So it’s not really fair to say the Nets didn’t actually build a title contender. We simply didn’t find out. But the Nets’ failed attempt at a title is proof that it takes not only talent to win in the league — it also takes the right blend of personalities. The Nets, it turns out, were always stuck in a bizarre alternate universe with Durant, Irving and Harden off the court that overshadowed any cohesion they might build on the court. Harden likely won’t win anything important in Philadelphia even with Joel Embiid. Irving will likely struggle to blend his talents with Luka Doncic in Dallas and it will be a shock if he’s still there a year from now. But Durant, who did figure out a way to play with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green at Golden State to win a couple titles, at least has a fighting chance in Phoenix with DeAndre Ayton, Devin Booker and Chris Paul.