But in the upcoming 2013-14 season, Wolf Pack leading scorer 6-foot-4 Malik Story has departed. Fellow guards Deonte Burton and Jordan Finn will be enjoying their senior years while UTEP transfer Michael Perez is coming off a redshirt junior season.
Sounds like there is room for a youngster or two to establish some replacement bonafides.
One player deciding to take up that challenge is Patrick Conroy of Marin Catholic High (MCH) and Lakeshow Pump n Run. He has accepted a recruited walk-on position with Coach David Carter's program.
The 6-foot-2 backcourter, a 2012-13 Marin County Athletic League First Team honoree and the scorer of 15.9 points per game as a senior, Conroy possesses the prerequisite basketball skills (a quick release, range on his shot and ballhandling prowess) and also displays critical intangible assets. Understanding roles and playing within capabilities, traits too often overlooked as unimportant, are critical for any semblance of team chemistry.
MCH Coach Mike Saia put it even better in describing his protege: "Patrick unconditionally embraced everything we asked him to do."
Such will be critical up in Reno and Conroy already has his part for next season down: "getting the guys better in practice and bringing a little leadership."
So why did he make the decision for Nevada?
"I went on my visit and chose it because not only were the coaches great, they were great guys. I also really liked the school."
Conroy's looking to major in business and will be carrying a cumulative 3.4 high school grade point average to his new location. Down the line, coaching college basketball is of great interest to him as ''basketball is a passion of mine and I like the teaching part."
The Nevada coaching staff is looking at him as a combo guard.
Conroy views his father and Saia as his biggest basketball influences -- "my Dad's been teaching me since I was three or four and Coach Saia taught me a ton of stuff and got me to where I am today."
Related to his progress, Conroy identified himself as "kind of a kick-out guy, shooting threes" as a freshman. That evolved into "my game got well-rounded" by the time he finished his prep eligibility. Part of the transformation was the development in using his left hand for both dribbling and drives into the paint resulting in a southpaw release.
How did this accomplishment come about?
"I would eat food lefthanded and brush my teeth lefthanded (besides his basketball specific drills).
That is dedication.
Saia confirmed this advancement: "Patrick is just as strong with his left hand as his right hand."
Asked for his best basketball moment, he offered, "our championship game this year. We were the underdog, the two seed after losing twice to Drake in the regular season." On February 16, 10-4 Marin Catholic won the league tournament, topping the 14-0 Pirates 60-48. Conroy totaled nearly half of his teams output, finishing with 29 points. As Saia explained, "Patrick came out with a purpose."
Winning that elusive championship also generated quite the rejoinder to any critics who measure the worth of a player by the so-called number of rings on the fingers. "We hadn't won anything [during Patrick's time]," Saia said, "and the question we talked about was what were we going to do?"
So Nevada and the MWC (which PJ Bernacki/The Bleacher Report ranked as the third best conference in the country for the 2012-13 season) will be another in a series of challenges for Conroy. But as Saia explained, "he [Patrick] will have to stretch but that's something he has always done, going to the East Bay to play against the best players."
Conroy thanked Saia, Joe Fuca (his Lakeshow coach) and Phil Doherty (earlier when Conroy was a member of the MVP Flight organization) for their assistance along the way.
Below is video of Conroy:
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