SAN JOSE, Calif. – Seneca Knight scored a career-high 28 points and pulled down nine rebounds as the Spartans battled their way to a hard-fought 70-68 victory over Nevada on Wednesday night at the Provident Credit Union Event Center. The win was the first for the Spartans' over the Wolfpack since 2014 (66-64).
After trailing by eight with 11:02 to go, SJSU rattled off a monster 17-2 run to take a 62-55 lead with just 4:21 to play. Knight gave the Spartans the lead outright with a clutch trey, his fourth of the night. The Spartans then held on for dear life as the Wolfpack mounted a comeback and cut the lead to one on a Jazz Johnson trey with 2:49 left.
After a couple of Spartan free throws, the lead was pushed back to three, but Nevada's Zane Meeks knocked down a trey to tie the game at 66-66 with :57 on the clock. Christian Anigwe then went 1-for-2 at the charity stripe, but the Spartan defense held on the other end as Omari Moore blocked a shot and Sam Japhet-Mathias pulled down the board with :13 left. The big man then hit two clutch free throws to give the Spartans' a three-point advantage.
Nevada's second to last possession ended with a foul. Johnson hit one of two free throws with less than two seconds remaining. After an immediate foul, Knight hit one of two freebies. The Wolfpack tried a heave on the inbound, but it was all for naught as the shot fell harmlessly to the hardwood.
"A lot of credit to my teammates," Knight said. "We knew that they would put a lot of emphasis on Brae (Ivey) with the way he's been playing. My teammates just had all the confidence in me and told me to playing hard and keep shooting, and tonight it paid off."
With the win, the Spartans improve to 2-3 in Mountain West play and 6-11 overall. The loss was Nevada's first of the 2019 conference slate. The Wolfpack are 10-6, 3-1 on the year.
SJSU shot 35 percent for the contest (19-of-54) while the Wolfpack shot 38 (23-of-60). The Spartans hit eight 3-balls to Nevada's 10 and won the rebounding battle 41-38. The Spartans also took care of business at the charity strip as they knocked down 24-of-31 attempts and their final 10 points of the game came way of the free throw line.
The teams played an even opening 20 minutes with both knocking down 12 buckets in the opening half. Nevada edged the Spartans 39 percent to 38 percent and knocked down five treys to SJSU's four. Brae Ivey hit three of those four treys while Seneca Knight scored 13 points to tie for the game-lead at the break.
After back-and-forth play for the first 10 minutes of play, Nevada built an eight-point lead and led by seven in the inside the final five minutes before Ralph Agee's putback layup sparked a 7-0 run to close the half and send the game to the locker room deadlocked at 34-34.
Knight's career night led the Spartans in scoring while Ivey added 17 points. Anigwe pulled down 11 rebounds and blocked two shots to go with seven points.
Jalen Harris scored 20 points to lead the way for the Wolfpack. Lindsey Drew chipped in 15 and Johnson closed with 11 points.
The Spartans return to action on Saturday against Colorado State inside the Provident Credit Union Event Center. Tip-off is set for 2:00 p.m.