The Wolf Pack didn't find a pot of gold under its stream of 3-point rainbows Thursday night against San Jose State.
It found something even better: a 10-game winning streak.
The Wolf Pack canned a program-record 16 3-pointers on a season-high 32 attempts to bury SJSU, 81-57, in front of 4,730 fans at Lawlor Events Center.
The win gave Nevada its first double-digit winning steak since the 2006-07 season, which is the last time the program made it to the NCAA Tournament.
"We didn't want to shoot that many threes, but they were falling so we took them," forward Olek Czyz said. "It was within the flow of the game. If it's within the rhythm and within the flow of the game, I think it's OK to take a three."
The 3-pointers were falling so often, a pair of former high school standouts even hit a trey for Nevada.
Former walk-on Keith Fuetsch, a Bishop Manogue graduate, banked in a 3-pointer with about two minutes remaining and current walk-on Brice Crook, a Galena High grad, swished a 3-pointer with a minute left for his first career points in a Wolf Pack uniform.
But the star of the show was Jerry Evans, who tallied a team-high and career-best 19 points. He made 6-of-7 shots and 5-of-6 3-pointers, hitting his first five treys before a miss late in the game.
"I kept shooting until I missed," Evans said. "Luckily, I didn't miss until late in the second half. I was feeling it. I had a good week of practice, I guess you can say, and it just carried over."
Deonte Burton (14 points, seven assists) and Malik Story (11 points) hit three 3-pointers each as eight Wolf Pack players hit at least one triple.
Coach David Carter said he was concerned his players were shooting 3-pointers too quickly early in the game -- 16 of Nevada's first 23 shots were 3-pointers -- but they started to become more patient against the SJSU matchup zone.
"When teams zone you and sag in, you're going to have to shoot threes," Carter said. "That's what the zone is for. It's designed to make you shoot from the perimeter. ... I always talk about rhythm within the offense and within the flow of the game, and I thought we took better shots as the game went on from the 3-point line."
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Said SJSU coach George Nessman: "They simply shot us out of the game."
It wasn't just the 3-pointers that carried Nevada, which shot 54.4 percent from the field. The Wolf Pack held SJSU (6-10, 0-2 WAC) to 31.7 percent shooting and outrebounded the Spartans, 38-33.
SJSU guards Keith Shamburger, James Kinney and Calvin Douglas -- who entered the game averaging a combined 39.4 points per game -- were held to 26 points on 10-of-34 shooting (29.4 percent).
"The key was defending, rebounding and taking good shots, and I thought we did all of those things over the 40 minutes," Carter said.
In addition to pushing Nevada's winning streak to double digits, the victory matched the Wolf Pack's win total from all of last season.
Nevada improved to 13-3 overall and 3-0 in WAC play. The Wolf Pack is one of three teams still unbeaten in the conference. The others are New Mexico State and Hawaii, which beat Fresno State in overtime Thursday and plays at Lawlor on Saturday.
While the Wolf Pack was happy to continue its winning steak, the players said they're already looking forward to a physical Hawaii team.
"It's definitely a good thing, but we can't get content," Burton said. "We just try to work hard every day in practice and look at the streak as if we're supposed to be here. We deserve it. We worked hard for it. And we just try to work hard in practice every day."
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