GAME NOTES: Familiar foes collide in an early Monday matchup, as the Nevada Wolf Pack clashes with the Weber State Wildcats in the seventh-place game of the Paradise Jam.

Since winning the first two games on the schedule against Cal Poly and Adams State, the Wolf Pack has dropped two in a row, both of those defeats coming as part of the tournament in St. Thomas. First, Nevada bowed to Seton Hall by a score of 68-60, and then on Saturday the team was tripped up by Clemson in a 59-50 final.

Meanwhile, WSU is still waiting for its first win of 2014-15 against a Division I opponent, having only defeated Presentation (74-49) last week. Like Nevada, the Wildcats have also come up empty in two tournament tries with a 73-64 defeat at the hands of Illinois State, and a 72-58 setback versus LSU over the weekend.

As far as the all-time series is concerned, the Pack is ahead by a slim 20-19 margin thanks to a 74-62 victory in the most recent meeting in Reno last season. Nevada is 8-2 in the last 10 meetings with the Wildcats.

In the first half against Clemson, the Pack made a total of just nine field goals, dropping the team behind by 15 points at the break. A much better defensive effort in the second half allowed Nevada to close the gap, but just not enough to make a difference in the end. Tyron Criswell and D.J. Fenner both tallied 11 points and Marqueze Coleman 10 for a Nevada group that was outscored 16-4 at the free-throw line and was charged with 15 turnovers.

Averaging a mere 61.0 ppg over four outings, which is still slightly better than the 60.0 ppg being allowed, the Wolf Pack are trying to get by with Fenner and Coleman leading the offense with 12.8 and 10.8 ppg, respectively. Both players are shooting under 40 percent from the floor however, and that has brought the entire team down to only 40.1 percent, which is still actually better than the competition (.369).

Utilizing just three players off the bench, the Wildcats limited themselves in how much damage they could do against LSU in the last game, finishing with almost as many turnovers (18) as made field goals (20). Joel Bolomboy registered a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds, but he also turned the ball over six times. Jeremy Senglin accounted for another 15 points and four of the unit's 10 assists in the setback.

Bolomboy, a defensive stalwart the last few years for the Wildcats, leads the squad in both scoring and rebounding with averages of 17.5 points and 11.5 rebounds per contest, but at the same time he has been saddled with more than four turnovers per outing. Senglin (13.8 ppg) is in the same boat as he too tries to make something out of nothing and is now averaging 5.0 miscues per outing for a team that is dealing with almost 18 turnovers per contest.

If Bolomboy and Senglin can cut down on the number of mistakes that plague them from one game to the next, perhaps this could be a game that the Wildcats could build on moving forward.