Drinking the Nevada Kool-Aid

Here's Joe Santoro peering into his crystal ball and taking a self-admitted big gulp of Kool-Aid about Nevada's basketball prospects next season:

Sports Fodder: Drinking the Pack Kool-Aid
Joe Santoro
The Record Courier
www.recordcourier.com
June 27, 2008

Now that Javale McGee, Matt LaGrone, DeMarshay Johnson, Marcelus Kemp, David Ellis and, yes, Curry Lynch, are gone, where does that leave the Wolf Pack men’s basketball team? Well, without any proven rebounders or shot blockers, to name two areas of concern. And, oh yeah, they’ll be shorter and younger. Depressed, Pack fans? Don’t be. How does another 20-plus win season, accompanied by a fifth trip to the NCAA Tournament in the last six years sound?

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Yes, we’re drinking the Wolf Pack basketball Kool-Aid. But why not? We know that the Pack has lost four players 6-foot-8 or taller. But, hey, none of them were named Fazekas. We know that the Pack will return just one senior. And we’re well aware that coach Mark Fox needs to find three new starters. So what? Fox found four new starters last year and one of the guys he had to replace was named Fazekas. Last year’s team returned players with a combined 38 starts, 3,077 minutes played and 967 points scored from the year (2006-07) before. This year’s team returns players with 67 starts, 3,034 minutes and 988 points scored from a year ago. Toss in five talented freshmen and players like Malik Cooke, Ray Kraemer, Lyndale Burleson and Richie Phillips who are ready to explode and, well, pass the silver and blue Kool-Aid.

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It might take a year to blossom, but the tandem of Armon Johnson and Luke Babbitt has the potential to become the best one-two combination in Pack basketball history. Fox is not going to turn his team over to a sophomore and a freshman right away. But it won’t take long. Johnson came from Chicago and Babbitt migrated from Cincinnati and the two became arguably the best two players in Northern Nevada boys high school basketball history. The two already have amazing chemistry together, having played together in pick-up games since early in their prep careers. The triple-double is going to become a part of every Pack fan’s vocabulary as Johnson and Babbitt pile up the points, rebounds and assists the next three and four years. That Cool-Aid is tasting better and better...