Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate combining received signals from multiple receive antennas in a wireless communication environment. The received signals from the multiple receive antennas can be weighted utilizing an adaptive combination of maximal ratio combining (MRC) and interference nulling. The combination of MRC and interference nulling can be controlled based upon one or more configurable parameters. For instance, a covariance matrix can be modified to include the one or more configurable parameters, and the modified covariance matrix can be utilized in connection with interference nulling. Further, respective values for the one or more configurable parameters can be selected as a function of at least one input (e.g., measured interference-over-thermal (IoT) value, received loading level indicator, eigenvalue distribution of a covariance matrix, . . . ) related to noise correlation.