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Nevada Closes Outs Regular Season At Colorado State Saturday
March 7, 2013 Nevada at Colorado State: Nevada (12-17, 3-12 MW) plays at Colorado State (23-7, 10-5 MW) on Saturday at 5:40 p.m. PT to close out the regular season. The game will air nationally on CBS Sports Network. The Wolf Pack has lost a season-high six in a row. The Rams are tied for second in the MW standings with a 10-5 mark. CSU is 15-1 at home this season and the Pack 2-10 away from Lawlor Events Center. Saturday, 5:40 p.m. PT TELEVISION: CBS Sports Network COLORADO STATE RAMS: First-year head coach Larry Eustachy has the Rams tied for second with a 10-5 mark in the MW and an overall record of 23-7. Eustachy has a career record 425-265 in his 22nd year. CSU starts five seniors and four score in double figures. Senior transfer Colton Iverson (6-10) tops the Rams in scoring at 14.4 points and rebounding at 9.7 per contest. In MW play he averages a double-double, 14.1 points per game and a league best 10.5 rebounds per game. In the first meeting he had 10 points and 16 rebounds. Point guard Dorian Green (6-2) is scoring 13.5 points per game and is third in the MW dishing out 4.1 assists per game. In conference play Green is third in assists at 4.3 per game. In Reno he had 10 points and five assists. Guard Wes Eikmeier (6-3) scores 12.3 points per game and forward Greg Smith (6-6) 11.3 per game. Eikmeier had 11 points in the first game and Smith a career-high 28 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Forward Pierce Hornung (6-5) scores 8.8 points per game and averages 9.2 rebounds. In Reno he was ill and played just three minutes. Offensively the Rams average 73.5 points per game and allow just 62.4. CSU shoots 45.1 percent from the field and allow opponents to shot 40.5 percent. From three-point range they shoot 34.1 percent and opponents 33.7. They outrebound opponents by 12.6 per game, 40.9-28.3. Story’s 1,442 points ranks ninth at Nevada with Darryl Owens (1986-89) eighth with 1,504. Burton is 11th in school history with his 1,405 points. Armon Johnson, who Story passed on Wednesday night, is 10th with 1,441 points. The Pack’s backcourt duo has started all 96 games of their careers. They reached 1,300 points in the same game against Colorado State and 1200 together in the Wyoming Contest. Burton scored his 1,000th career point on Nov. 17 against Green Bay and less than 24 hours later Story joined the club, scoring his 1,000th point on Nov. 18 versus Southern Utah. The duo became the 23rd and 24th players in school history to score 1,000 points. EVANS STARTER IN MW PLAY: Junior guard Jerry Evans, Jr. returned to the starting lineup after seven games coming off the bench when MW play began. Evans is averaging 7.6 points and 5.9 rebounds in conference play with a shooting percentage of 42. On the season he is averaging 7.5 points and a team-high 5.4 rebounds per game. Evans had a stretch of three double figure scoring games snapped finishing with seven at #20 New Mexico. He reached double figures with 14 vs. #25 SDSU, 12 against Boise State and 14 at UNLV. The 14 points against the Rebels tied for game high honors. In the Pack’s game at SDSU he scored 16 points. In 15 conference games he has twice reached double figures in rebounds with 10 vs. #25 Wyoming and a game-high 11 at Fresno State. At Air Force his eight rebounds tied for game-high honors as did seven against #25 San Diego State and nine at UNLV. At UNM he finished with a game-high nine boards. He has led the Pack in rebounding in seven-of-15 MW games. In five of the games he either posted or tied for game-high honors in rebounds. Six times in the 15 starts he scored in double figures marking the first time he has more than one double figure scoring game in a season. After two double figure scoring games his first two seasons, one as a freshman and one his sophomore year, he has eight this season. Burris made his first start this season at Pacific with his previous start coming his freshman year on Dec. 11, 2010 versus San Francisco State. At Pacific he responded with 14 points and a career-high nine rebounds. The 14 points is one off his career high of 15 set his freshman year versus Pepperdine. He scored 13 points versus Cal Poly and followed that with 11 against San Francisco marking his first back-to-back double digit scoring games. EXPLOSIVE BACKCOURT: Nevada’s backcourt duo of Deonte Burton and Malik Story has started all 96 games in their Wolf Pack careers. They are responsible for 48 percent of the Pack’s offensive production this season and in MW play 51.6 percent. Story averages 16.7 points per game to rank fourth in the MW and Burton’s 15.7 is seventh. In MW play Story ranks fourth averaging 16.6 points per game and Burton is sixth at 15.4 per game. Burton reached double figures the first 14 MW games and a career-high 15 in a row until finishing with eight versus #11 New Mexico on Wednesday. Four times in conference play he scored 20 or more points including the first three games of the MW season. In an earlier eight game stretch he averaged 21.5 points per game. In back-to-back games he scored 28 at Marshall and 26 versus UC Davis. In the last five games of the eight game streak he scored 25 or more points four times including a season-high 29 in the Pack’s 76-73 victory at Washington. Eight times he has scored 20 or more points this season. Story has three 30 plus point games on the season and eight additional 20 plus point games. He scored a career-high 35 against Yale with 24 coming in the second half. In two MW losses he scored over 30 points with 31 versus Colorado State and 33 at San Diego State. He struggled to begin MW play totaling just nine points in the first two games. After the slow start he has scored or tied for game-high honors in points in seven-of-15 games; 24 at Fresno State, 17 versus #25 San Diego State, 20 at #20 UNM, 31 versus Colorado State, 33 at SDSU, 24 at home vs. UNLV and 25 vs. #11 New Mexico. On the season he is making 36 percent of his three-pointers to rank fourth in the MW and his 2.66 made per game is second in the conference. In 20-of-29 games this season one of the two has posted or tied for game-high honors in points. Story has 11 game-highs and Burton nine. Story ranks in three career categories and his name appears on two single season lists. Story has been successful on 38.8 (247-of-637) percent of his three-point attempts which is ninth at Nevada. Last season Story attempted a Pack single season record 226 three-pointers and made 94 for a percentage of 41.6. The 41.6 percent ranked 24th in NCAA I and his 2.69 made per game was 37th. The 94 three-pointers made a year ago are second most in Pack history behind Jimmy Carroll’s (1996-97) 96. His 77 this year is the fourth best season total in school history. As a sophomore he made 76 three-pointers which is the fifth best season in Pack history. In the March 4, AP poll, New Mexico is ranked 12th. UNLV (43) and Colorado State (1) are receiving votes. UNM is 11th in the USA Today Coaches Poll. UNLV (9), San Diego State (7) and Colorado State (5) are receiving votes. Three-of-nine Mountain West teams are in the top 20 of the March 4, NCAA RPI report. New Mexico leads the pack at No. 2, UNLV is 14 and Colorado State appears at 17. SDSU is 32nd and Boise State 44th give the conference five teams in the top 45. Wyoming (67), Air Force (85), Fresno State (153) and Nevada (166) round out the conference.
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