Here is a solid season-to-date Wolf Pack analysis

Credit Tyler Bickerton for a very sharp analysis here. We wish we had written it.

Pack guest column: Nevada will go as far as Kemp takes team
TYLER C. BICKERTON
TYBICKS@GMAIL.COM
Reno Gazette-Journal
12/3/2007

As Marcelus Kemp goes, so goes the Nevada Wolf Pack basketball team.

The first six games of the season have shown that Kemp is the most important piece of the Wolf Pack puzzle.

In Nevada's two victories this season, Kemp is shooting 60 percent from the field averaging two turnovers per game.

In Nevada's four losses, Kemp is shooting a woeful 34.5 percent from the field and averaging 3.25 turnovers per game.

Kemp, a sixth-year senior, has played second banana to the likes of Kirk Snyder, Kevinn Pinkney and Nick Fazekas as he waited for his turn to be the big man of campus.

With the departures of Fazekas and Ramon Sessions to the NBA draft, Kemp finally is the face of the Pack. And much of Nevada's triumphs or failures this season will be, justly or unjustly, attributed to him.

Thus far this season, Kemp has done an outstanding job of improving the facets of his game that were considered weaknesses last year. He is averaging career highs in rebounds (6.5), assists (2.8) and steals (1.2). Most notably, Kemp has shown an amplified intensity on the defensive end that was seldom seen in his earlier days at Nevada.

But more than anything, this painfully young and erratic Wolf Pack roster needs consistency, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Kemp, who has shot 46.2 percent from the field in each of the past two seasons, has not been able to deliver that dependable scoring when the Pack has needed it most -- in games that it trails.

This was never more evident than in the seven minute, 22 second drought the Wolf Pack endured Saturday night against Pacific when Nevada missed nine successive shots. Kemp missed four of the shots during that stretch and was unable to rescue the Pack from the scoring abyss...

Go here for the full analysis.