Chris Murray

cmurray@rgj.com

Wolf Pack athletic director Doug Knuth has an apt analogy for his goals for Nevada’s athletic facilities.

“The analogy would be a homeowner who buys a house and upgrades the kitchen one year and the next year you do the bathrooms and the next year it’s landscaping and the next year you do another project, but you’re constantly upgrading and improving your home,” Knuth said. “That’s how I look at it.”

So, while the Wolf Pack is already in the middle of two major projects – an $11.5 million renovation of Mackay Stadium, which began last month, and a $2.3 million construction of a tennis center, which began in August – Nevada isn’t standing pat there. There’s another big-ticket item Knuth is pushing for: a basketball practice facility that has been highly sought-after by Wolf Pack coaches for a decade.

At the most expedited rate, the practice facility could be completed and opened by the spring of 2017.

“That’s a game-changer for men’s and women’s basketball to have a dedicated practice space,” Knuth said. “You don’t have to fight for the space, you have 24-hour access. Coaches have been asking for that for a long time here and it’s finally coming. It will put us on pace with other Mountain West schools.”

Mackay Stadium's $11.5M renovation is underway

The Wolf Pack currently practices at Lawlor Events Center but often doesn’t have access to the arena – for example, a professional bull riding event has taken over Lawlor this weekend – which often forces the team to practice at the Virginia Street Gym, the Boys and Girls Club or even a local high school.

The new practice facility would go into the Lombardi Rec Center on campus. Lombardi currently serves as a student fitness center. It also has basketball courts, a pool, where the swimming and diving team competes, and classroom space. A new $46 million Wiegand Fitness Center is under construction and is expected to open in January 2017, which would make Lombardi available for the Wolf Pack to renovate.

“It’s really a great project,” Knuth said of the Lombardi renovation. “In my estimation, to build a facility with two practice courts, six baskets, a huge weight room, locker rooms for various teams, you’re talking about a $25 million building. We don’t have to build the infrastructure. The floor, ceilings and walls are there. We just have to renovate it and update the floors and it’s more like a $2 million project for us.”

The Wolf Pack would share Lombardi with the university’s community health sciences department and dance program. Nevada has been trying to get a practice facility since it reached four straight NCAA tournaments from 2003-07. The Pack has discussed several options, but never really made progress.

Most teams in the MW have practice facilities, with UNLV ($11.7 million), San Diego State ($15 million) and Utah State ($9.7 million) completing basketball practice facilities in the last three years and New Mexico ($60 million) and Wyoming ($30 million) completing arena renovations to include practice space in the same time span. Boise State and Colorado State also have basketball practice facilities.

First-year Wolf Pack coach Eric Musselman has shown artist renderings about the project to recruits but actually getting it completed and showing prospects a finished product would help in recruiting.

“This would have a huge impact and a lot of people understand the value of this project and how important it will be for recruiting,” Knuth said. “When basketball wins at a high level, the University of Nevada and Reno gets on a national map and people talk about us on a national level. We’ve seen that here. That’s what a basketball practice facility can help us get with Coach Muss. People understand that and want to help us and invest in that project because it can create an immediate recruiting bonus.”

Wolf Pack to build $2.3M tennis facility

Knuth estimates it would take 3-5 months to complete a renovation of Lombardi, which the Wolf Pack will get access to in January 2017. That would mean a finished product by May or June of 2017. But that all hinges on the Wolf Pack being able to raise that $2 million in private donations by next January.

“We have one year to finance it,” Knuth said. “The clock in my head is ticking. We’re working on it.”

The Wolf Pack has a few other projects being discussed, including an indoor all-sport practice facility that could range anywhere from $12 million-$25 million, but after nearly a decade without any major facility improvement, Nevada is back in the facility-building game. The Mackay renovation is expected to be done by August and the tennis center, which is nearly complete, could be done as early as March.

“The majority of that project is done,” Knuth said. “The concrete is poured, the fences are up and the landscaping is done. We poured the concrete and all that stuff, but we can’t do the court surfacing until the temperature is above 50 degrees and it can’t be below freezing at night. I don’t know when that will be with El Niño, but we’re hoping for early March to finish the project so we can practice on campus and maybe hold matches this spring. If we can get tennis on campus this year, that’d be a nice bonus.”