By Nathan Canilao (@nathancanilao)- SJSU men’s basketball Beat Reporter
After starting conference play 2-1 with wins over UNLV (11-3, 0-2 MW) and Colorado State (8-8, 0-3 MW), the San Jose State men’s basketball team (11-6, 2-2 MW) dropped their home matchup against the University of Nevada, Reno (14-3, 4-0 MW) 67-40 on Saturday afternoon at Provident Credit Union Event Center.
Junior shooting guard Omari Moore led 10 points and five rebounds for SJSU.
The Spartans scored their lowest point total this season. Their previous lowest point was 54 against North Texas (12-3, 3-1 CUSA) on Nov. 25.
“Very disappointing night for San Jose State,” said SJSU head coach Tim Miles. “ If you look at just the areas of rebounding and valuing and caring for the basketball, we were poor in all three of those categories.”
The Spartans started the game off hot, going up 13-4. But after taking the early nine-point lead, Nevada rattled off a run of their own, outscoring SJSU 25-2 to end the first half up 32-15.
SJSU shot 3-12 from beyond the arc in the first half and 6-24 for the game.
The Spartans turned the ball over 14 times in the first half which led to 14 points off turnovers for Nevada.
Six players had multiple turnovers this game: Moore had six, Sage Tolbert III had four, Alvaro Cardenas had three and Robert Vaihola had four.
SJSU also turned the ball over 20 times which tied their season-high. Moore has now had back-to-back games with six turnovers on the season.
“I think we scored for the first seven or eight possessions, and maybe we thought it was going to be easy, but obviously, I didn’t have us ready, mentality wise,” Miles said. “That was really disappointing for us tonight, but credit Nevada, I thought they were very solid.”
Nevada kept their momentum going in the second half as they shot 55% from the field.
After being a non-factor in the first half, Wolf Pack senior forward and second leading scorer, Kenan Blackshear, scored eight points in the second half which jolted the Wolfpack offense.
Nevada didn’t let SJSU get within striking distance and they cruised to a 67-40 victory.
The Spartans were outbounded 42 to 31 and gave up 14 offensive rebounds.
“I thought we took some poor shots, and it’s hard to offensive rebound when you take poor shots,” Miles said. “When you’re giving them a defensive rebound over and over. I think it’s like a domino effect.”
The Spartans now have their first losing streak season and are now .500 in conference play.
San Jose State men’s basketball will host rival Fresno State on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Provident Credit Union Event Center.
