Hunt set tone for Nevada’s thorough domination

The assumption was that the University of Nevada men’s basketball team must have waved the stat sheets from the past in front of their big man, Dario Hunt, like a red cape in front of a bull.

"Nope," Wolf Pack coach David Carter said. "We didn’t have to."

Surely, then, they invoked the name of Hunt’s tormentor, Vander Joaquim, loudly and often to stoke the competitive fires.

"We didn’t mention it," guard Patrick Nyeko said.

No, Nevada’s 88-79 victory over Hawaii on Thursday night was all on the 6-foot, 8-inch, 230-pound Hunt, who turned the tables on Joaquim and took over the boards on the Rainbow Warriors in a dominating performance.

"Blackout Night" indeed.

After being thoroughly worked over by Joaquim in Reno last month and playing second fiddle to him much of last year, Hunt put up a convincing double-double of 15 points and 17 rebounds to carry the Wolf Pack past UH and reassert Nevada’s dominance in the Western Athletic Conference.

Or, as UH head coach Gib Arnold pointedly put it afterward, "I think both players read the news clips — and one got mad and one let it go to his head."

Joaquim managed 14 points and nine rebounds, but the numbers alone hardly did justice to the turning of the tide in this one.

Held to one point on an 0-for-6 night in January when Joaquim’s 22 points nearly carried UH past the Wolf Pack, Hunt was a determined man on a mission Thursday at the Stan Sheriff Center. The Wolf Pack are 14-0 this season when they win the rebounding battle, and Hunt sets the tone for Nevada.

"Dario took it upon himself to come out and play hard and play aggressively," Carter said. "It was a point of pride with him at that point. He’s a senior and he knows what he means to this team."

On a night when the Wolf Pack took control of the boards, outrebounding the ‘Bows 46-27, it was Hunt who showed the way. UH’s worst rebounding game of the season got its impetus from Hunt, who set the tone early and unmistakably with 11 first-half rebounds and eight points.

As a sign in the stands — "Play Like Champions" — had put it, this was UH’s chance to show what it could do against the first-place Wolf Pack (20-4, 9-1 WAC) and inject itself into the conference regular-season race. It was an opportunity to cut the distance between them to one game in the loss column. And, coupled with second-place New Mexico State’s

59-58 upset loss to Idaho, it was an opening to move into a second-place tie.

Instead, the ‘Bows (13-10, 5-4) tumbled into fourth place.

"You saw the championship team," Arnold said. And, he wasn’t nodding to his own locker room just down the hall when he said it. "They crushed us on the boards, which is always a big indicator of who has the biggest heart."

Thursday night it was Hunt who left the heartache of the past behind with an inspired performance.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.