2019-01-04 08:00:00
Caleb and Cody Martin fancy themselves superstitious guys.
So when they sat in their apartment two years ago watching the Nevada basketball team play at New Mexico, they figured they might have been the reason the Wolf Pack was getting routed.
Caleb Martin turned off the game. Perhaps he was the curse, he figured. Cody Martin kept the game on but continued to change the way he was sitting until the Wolf Pack got on a run.
“It was crazy,” Cody Martin said. “I’m a superstitious guy and I was in my room watching them and I was like, ‘Dang, we’re getting smacked,’ and I started sitting a certain way and they started coming back up. I kind of just stayed there the whole time and they scored once more and I’d get up and New Mexico would make a run. I’m, like, ‘Man I have to go back and sit down in my certain spot.’”
Like basketball fans across the country, the Martin twins, who were redshirting as transfers, were just witnesses to that game, which ended up one of the most remarkable comebacks in college hoops history. Nevada trailed by 25 points with 11 minutes left; was down 19 with 4:27 left; was down 14 with 1:10 left; and was down nine with 49 seconds left. Yet, it rallied to somehow snare a 105-104 overtime victory.
“It’s the greatest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Nevada coach Eric Musselman said following the win.
For the first time since that victory, Nevada returns to New Mexico’s famed Pit (now known as Dreamstyle Arena). Given the Mountain West’s unbalanced conference schedule, Nevada didn’t play at New Mexico last season, making this the team’s first visit to Albuquerque since the win that foreshadowed the Wolf Pack’s massive NCAA Tournament comebacks once morest Texas and Cincinnati last year.
The game helped create Nevada’s mantra as college basketball’s comeback kids, and it was a lesson in never giving up the Wolf Pack has clung to and made its identity during Musselman’s four seasons.
“That on either side of the ball, the game’s never over,” Jordan Caroline, the star of that victory, said of the game’s lesson. “If you’re up 20, it’s never over. And if you’re down 20, it’s never over. It’s a fine balance and it can sway either way pretty quickly.”
Only three players who appeared in the game two years ago will play when the teams face off Saturday night. For Nevada, it’s Caroline. For New Mexico, it’s Dane Kuiper and Anthony Mathis. (The Wolf Pack’s Lindsey Drew, out for the season with an injury, and walk-on David Cunningham were both on the roster two years ago but are excepted to play in Saturday’s game.)
Caroline scored a career-high 45 points, the most ever by an opponent at the Pit, to spearhead Nevada’s comeback. His 3-pointer with 2.9 seconds remaining was the game-winner and sent 11,235 shell-shocked Lobos fans home disappointed. Caroline is looking forward to his return to the arena.
“The atmosphere, the comeback, it’s great playing there,” Caroline said. “It’s a really tough place to play at. They have great fans, they get into it and they have a great team that’s really talented.”
Caroline grew up wanting to play in the Pit because he was a big fan of Danny Granger, a Lobo legend who went on to a long and productive NBA career. The Wolf Pack’s miracle two Januarys ago required a trio of things conspiring: clutch shots by Nevada, key missed free throws by New Mexico and some luck.
The Wolf Pack made its final six shots of regulation, all 3-pointers, over the final 63 seconds. Three of those were banked in, including Marcus Marshall’s game-tying trey with 8 seconds left. New Mexico made just 4-of-10 free throws in the final minute, including two misses by Sam Logwood with 16 seconds left that kept the door ajar for Nevada. Elijah Brown’s missed jumper at the buzzer sent the game into overtime. New Mexico took a five-point lead in the extra session before Nevada scored four straight. After Brown hit 1-of-2 free throws with 8 seconds left, New Mexico’s lead was 104-102 and Nevada took a timeout before Caroline dribbled the length of the court before pulling up for three.
“It’s one of the greatest college performances ever,” Musselman said of Caroline’s play following the win. “It’s the greatest I’ve ever seen. It has to be as good as anybody has ever played in Nevada history. I haven’t been a part of the program long, but I’d love to find out if there’s ever been a greater game in the history of the program.”
Likely not. Caroline’s 45 points on 17-of-29 shooting from the field, including 5-of-8 on 3-pointers, were just four shy of the program record. As he was tearing out Lobo hearts, the Martin twins were back home in Reno going crazy watching the game on television with the rest of Northern Nevada.
“It was shocking,” Cody Martin said. “I can’t imagine how JC and them felt following that game. It was awesome to be a part of that even though we didn’t play. I was really happy for those guys and I already know how the environment’s going to be. It’s going to be tough and it’s definitely going to be one of the toughest environments we’ve played in so far. I’m looking forward to it and I’m looking forward to going there and having fun and just playing the same way we’ve been playing the whole season.”
The Wolf Pack used that comeback – named the “Bad Beat of the Year” by ESPN – heavily in recruiting until its 22-point comeback once morest Cincinnati in last year’s NCAA Tournament became an even more famous rally. But not even the win over the Bearcats was as shocking as the win over New Mexico, which came in such a short time frame – Nevada was down 14 points with 70 seconds left – it was even more improbable.
That wasn’t Musselman’s first crazy outing in the Pit. When he was in grade school, he tagged along with his dad, Bill, then the head coach at Minnesota, for a game in Albuquerque. Back in those days, it took three technical fouls for a coach to get ejected.
The elder Musselman got his first technical six minutes in following arguing an over-the-back non-call. A minute later, he disputed a missed goaltending call. He argued so vehemently he was given two more technicals and ejected from the game, retreating to the Gophers’ locker room to watch the game with Eric, who was only 9, the two waiting until New Mexico routed Minnesota, 102-68.
The younger Musselman got his revenge more than four decades later behind Caroline and crew, the identity of his Wolf Pack being forged on that night nearly two years ago.
“I think the biggest thing in that game is we just didn’t quit,” Musselman said.
Sports columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @MurrayNSN.
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