An early two-game losing streak for Nevada was quickly put to an end after a 77-64 win over UC Santa Barbara. It wasn’t the most effective offensive performance for Nevada, but a tight defense and a career night by Corey Camper Jr. were enough to give Nevada its fourth win of the season.
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Scoring Summary
1st Half:
UCSB 28 – Nevada 32
2nd Half:
UCSB 36 – Nevada 45
Final: USCB 64, Nevada 77
Offense
Nevada’s offense got off to a hot start, with Elijah Price and Camper Jr. knocking down early buckets. An early nine-point lead halfway through the first 20 minutes of the game gave Nevada early momentum.
The Pack were shooting around 40 percent from the field for most of the first half, finishing that half at 43 percent and the entire game at 48 percent. Most of the momentum came from Camper Jr. in that first half, knocking down a couple of threes to give Nevada the 32-28 lead going into half.
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Camper Jr. finished the night with. career-high 27 points on 9-14 shooting and 4-7 from three. Price and Tayshawn Comer followed with 14 points each.
“Corey can really cut, he knows how to score, and he knows we’ve got to have him being one of those go-to guys for us,” head coach Steve Alford said after the game. “I think Corey would tell you that he hadn’t been a go-to guy in his career. And you know, we want him to be a go-to guy. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna lead us in scoring every night, but we want him to be very active. He’s not gonna score 27 a night, but there’s no reason why he can’t be at the top of the food chain when it comes to scouting us, because I think he’s really not always a good offensive player. He can really defend, so obviously a huge key for us.”
The second half continued to be a strong outing, as Camper Jr. reached 20 points a few minutes into the half. Nevada shot an even better 55 percent from the field in the second half and forced 23 free throws, converting on 21 of them.
“We just didn’t panic,” Price said. “We understood the situation. We understood what we needed to do on both ends of the court. We got great leadership in our locker room, with our coaches and our players, so we just stuck together and found a way to win.”
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Defense
Nevada had been struggling to defend the three-point line as of late, so it was a big step up when it forced UCSB to only 27 percent from beyond the arc in the first half and 29 percent in total.
UCSB made some late noise in the first half, powered by some threes made by Miro Little, who ended the night with a team-leading 13 points on 3-6 shooting. The team shot a total of 40 percent from the field, but turnovers and fouling ended up being the dagger against the Gauchos.
Nevada forced 15 turnovers, which led to the Pack scoring 24 points, a sign of a much more dynamic defense.
“It’s crucial, because we haven’t been turning people over late, and I think we’ve been soft defensively, and today we were back being a physical defensive team,” Alford said. “We were really good with the ball; our ball pressure was good. Our gap help was outstanding. We had a lot of good rakes, deflections out of our gaps. They got a little bit more offensive rebounds than I would like, and they did a good job of taking our offensive boards away, but I think because of that concentration, it did affect their transition, because we were concerned about their transition, and those are the messages you want to send.”
What’s Next
Nevada will head back on the road to play in the Acrisure Series, starting against Washington on Thanksgiving.
Tip-off is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. PST.
