On a list of traditional college basketball powers, you’re unlikely to find the Nevada Wolf Pack. But that might change in the years to come. In the past, cheap Nevada basketball tickets have been plentiful and easy to find. However, those days appear to be firmly in the past. The Wolf Pack has started to assert itself inside the Mountain West conference and emerge as a powerful mid-major, leading to a sharp increase in the demand for last-minute Nevada basketball tickets.

From the Ground Up

Part of the reason why UNR isn’t an established basketball powerhouse is that they started out on the bottom levels of the collegiate hierarchy. The Wolf Pack spent many years competing in either Division II or NAIA. However, UNR made the permanent jump to Division I in 1970 when they joined the West Coast Athletic Conference. Since then, the Wolf Pack has slowly but surely climbed the ladder, reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 1984.

On the Map

UNR’s ascent in the college basketball world started to accelerate in 2004 when the Wolf Pack made an unlikely run to the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. That ended up being the first of four straight trips to the NCAA Tournaments under coaches Trent Johnson and Mark Fox that helped put UNR basketball on the map.

A Little Mussel

When Eric Musselman took over as UNR’s head coach in 2015, he quickly made the Wolf Pack a mid-major worth knowing about. UNR won the CBI tournament in Musselman’s first season and then proceeded to reach the NCAA Tournament in each of the next three seasons, including another run to the Sweet 16 in 2018. In Musselman’s four seasons, the Wolf Pack was 110-34, laying the foundation for new head coach Steve Alford to make Nevada a permanent part of the college basketball landscape.