They’re Hungry Like a Wolf Pack

Could undefeated Nevada be the best basketball team in the West right now?

The Wolf Pack, ranked 17th in the country, gets to showcase its talent -- Nick Fazekas plays a leading role in that department -- against No. 16 UCLA Saturday at Anaheim in the Wooden Classic, and compare itself to 13th-ranked Washington, which plays New Mexico in the first game.

Fazekas, a 6-foot-11, 235-pound junior forward with a dainty baby hook and a deadly three-point shot, is considered one of the top five forwards in the country.

Four years ago, Nevada was an unnoticed middle-of-the-pack Western Athletic Conference team and Fazekas was a skinny (185 pounds), slow-footed high school player in Arvada, Colo., attracting no suitors from the Big 12 or Pacific 10 conferences.

Now the Wolf Pack (6-0) has a more recent NCAA Sweet 16 appearance -- 2004 -- than West Coast royalty UCLA, and an impressive victory this season over Kansas.

Fazekas has gone from being barely recruited to being considered a solid NBA prospect.

Nevada Coach Mark Fox and his team are still new enough at this national ranking thing and being on television to be excited about a trip to Anaheim and a date with UCLA.

“It’s a huge step for our program,” Fox said of playing in the Wooden Classic. “When we played at Kansas, we took our entire team to the grave site of James Naismith [inventor of basketball]. Ten days later, they get a chance to meet Coach [John] Wooden and play UCLA in front of a national audience. What a great opportunity for our kids.”

Although the Wolf Pack is drawing national attention, Nevada still is a mid-major, a team, Fox said, that needs to schedule aggressively.

So, before beating UC Davis at Reno on Wednesday night, the Wolf Pack had traveled 10,028 miles in 11 days, playing at Vermont and Pacific, with a pit stop at Kansas.

“It was more tiring than I thought,” Fox said. “For me and for the kids. But it’s what we have to do if we want to keep getting better.”

Fox took over the Nevada program after the 2004 Sweet 16 appearance when then-coach Trent Johnson replaced Mike Montgomery at Stanford.

Fox had been instrumental in recruiting Kirk Snyder, a first-round NBA draft pick last year, and Fazekas. Fox sneaked Snyder out from under the noses of Pac-10 schools and grasped Fazekas’ potential when the Colorado colleges were ignoring him.

“All the coaches in the Big 12 said Nick just wasn’t strong enough,” said Mitch Conrad, Fazekas’ coach at Ralston Valley High in Arvada. “And the way he ran, they didn’t think he was athletic enough. But I never saw a problem. I would tell coaches, ‘If there’s a fastbreak and Nick has a chance to score, he gets there.’ ”

Fazekas still doesn’t run gracefully. His knees practically hit his chin and it seems as if he takes 20 steps when 10 would do. But Conrad said that if coaches had paid attention, they would have noticed that Fazekas had quick feet in the post, plus natural offensive moves.

And, he is the son of a good basketball player. Joe Fazekas, whose parents came to the United States from Hungary during the Communist crackdown in 1956, was big and strong and an avid pupil of his high school coach, Tom Asbury, who later went on to head coaching jobs at Pepperdine and Kansas State. Joe Fazekas went to Wyoming when Asbury became an assistant coach there, and eventually played some pro basketball in Argentina.

It was Asbury who called Joe Fazekas when Nick was going into his senior year in high school and recommended that Nick consider Nevada.

“Frankly, I hadn’t heard about the program and Nick didn’t really want to consider it,” Joe Fazekas said. “I told him to do it as a favor to Coach Asbury and when he made his visit, he liked the people and was impressed with the coaching staff.”

Arizona, with Mike Bibby, and Missouri, with Kareem Rush, had Fazekas’ attention when he was in high school. He hardly got a hello from those schools.

“I was like most kids, thinking I would go where I wanted,” he said. “I hope when all those coaches see me now they say, ‘I missed out on a good player.’ Because I think I’m a good player.”

Last season, he was the WAC player of the year. He was a preseason All-American this season and didn’t hurt himself with a 35-point, eight-rebound effort in Nevada’s 72-70 win over Kansas. And on the last play of the game, Fazekas knocked the ball away from the Jayhawks’ C.J. Giles as time ran out. Kansas assistant Joe Dooley had to apologize a day later for yelling an obscenity at Fazekas after the game.

“We’re past all that,” said Fazekas, who is averaging 20.2 points and 8.2 rebounds. “I’m just happy I could make a play.”

His boyhood dream was to move on to the NBA after his college career at Arizona or Missouri, but for a time, that seemed unrealistic.

“We didn’t discourage Nick from dreaming,” Conrad said. “But, honestly, I wasn’t sure it would happen.”

Now, Fazekas might even leave college early for the pros. There’s more to the Wolf Pack, though, than Fazekas. Marcelus Kemp, a 6-5, 210-pound sophomore guard from Seattle who sat out all of last season with a knee injury, is averaging 17 points a game.

“We went to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA two years ago and to the second round last year,” Fazekas said. “I don’t think we’re just a flash in the pan. We won’t be the place where McDonald’s All-Americans come to play, but I feel like I’ve helped build something permanent here.”