Nevada Wolf Pack: 2016 College Basketball Invitational Champions



RENO, Nev. -- Nevada's Tyron Criswell has won several individual awards since he started playing basketball in his youth.

But it took until his last college basketball game to win his first team championship after Nevada's 85-82 win against Morehead State in the ninth College Basketball Invitational on Friday night.

"It feels good to win an individual award, but when you win a big one with your team it feels so much better, especially when you know you're team's been through so much," said Criswell, who scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.

Nevada freshman Cameron Oliver added 20 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guard Lyonell Gains led Morehead State with 17 points, shooting 8 of 13 from the field.

Winning the clinching game of the best-of-three series wasn't easy for Nevada.

Morehead State's Xavier Moon nearly tied the game with a last-second half-court shot in overtime that bounced off the rim.

"With the half-court shot, from my vantage point, I said, `Here we go: double overtime," Nevada coach Eric Musselman said.

Criswell helped erase Morehead State's lead and put Nevada (24-14) in position to win with 13 seconds left in overtime.

After Nevada guard D.J. Fenner's pass to guard Lindsey Drew was deflected under the basket, Criswell grabbed the loose ball and made a layup to put the Wolf Pack up 83-82.

On the Eagles' next possession, DeJuan Marrero missed a layup and Fenner grabbed the rebound. He converted both free throws before Moon's last-second shot missed and the game ended.

"Mission accomplished: send our seniors out the right way," Musselman said. "For our freshman (they) can sit back and think about all the experience they got ... to springboard us into next year ... all those guys got better obviously with all these extra games and extra time together. Even myself, I know I'll be a better coach coming back next year getting these extra games."

Nevada's ability to get to the free-throw line was vital. The Wolf Pack shot 37.5 percent from the field, but converted 39 of 45 shots from the line. Morehead State (23-14) shot 46.7 percent from the field, but only converted on 6 of 13 free throws.

Nevada's crowd of 9,043, far surpassing the season average (6,416), proved important for the Wolf Pack as it did throughout the CBI tournament. Home teams were 13-3 in the tournament.

Nevada led by as many as 12 points with 15:06 left in regulation, but Morehead State rallied.

"That's what we did all year," Morehead State coach Sean Woods said. "We don't stop playing. We are going to play until the final buzzer and that's what we did tonight."

With six seconds left in regulation and the Eagles down two points, Marrero went to the free-throw line and banked his first shot off the glass. He made the second free throw.

Oliver missed a 3-pointer to win the game in regulation.

They're Getting Desperate, I Know It. And That's Fine.








So I have noticed that parts of the Madoka Magica Collab is now a permanent addition to Pangya Global as a result of Korea still not getting their act together. (The only ones missing are the cut-ins and backgrounds.) And a number of other popular RNG boxes are permanent, including Lucia Hair Kits, Arin Gift Boxes, 2015 Lucky Pouches and 2016 Papel Boxes. The Fro Comet is now a permanent addition to the Pangya Shop. And now people can smack Kyuubey all they want and they have unlimited time to get the Ultimate Madoka Set and/or Madoka Magica Club Set.




This is great news for new players and for veterans who didn't get a chance to have the RNG in their favor. Pangya Team should know that they are losing their players to Winning Putt and how do you get them back? Make some of the limited-time content permanent. So this is a nice touch but I am not going to go after the Madokami right now but I will at some point.





What I am satisfied about is the drop rate for the Hana Grand Prix that is taking place as of this post. I finally got not one, but two rares, in 35 special coins. It only took me 35 on my main account to finally get a couple of rares, albeit they are Ancient Dark Wings and WT-PEP, and on my alternate account I got the 2012 Swimwear. As of this post, I have a rate of 3/125. So about evert 40-50 attempts I get something, although the rates might be nerfed later on, since I have already won something from this event.



Last year, I only won once out of over 100 coins on my main account, the Blue Lagoon Set. RNG was not friendly to me last year. This year, it's changed a bit, and now I have won three rares across both accounts. Hopefully I can win a few more as Hana remains my main character while playing the game.


Another great thing about the Madoka collab being permanent: both my accounts can now have all of the normal clothing sets for Hana, Lucia, Arin, Kooh and Nell. However, they need to also bring back the cut-ins and backgrounds to complete things. So the shop could actually use another update to ensure that there is a wide variety of stuff that can be purchased.



For now, I am very relieved that some of the timed RNG items are now permanent and I got three Hana rare items in the Event Grand Prix, but room for improvement is exactly that, and they will need to bring back some more items from the past and make it permanent. Pangya Team is getting desperate, I know this for a fact, and that is completely fine by me.