Willis oversleeps; Bellfield to start at point in Reno

By Rob Miech

Friday, Dec. 5, 2008 | 1:27 p.m.

UNLV sophomore guard Tre’Von Willis overslept Friday morning and missed a big chunk of practice, so freshman Oscar Bellfield will start in Reno against the Wolf Pack on Saturday night.

Willis shook the hands of most of his teammates and apologized when he showed a little after 11 a.m.

Afterward, he explained that he has been fighting a chest cold and slept through his alarm.

“I’m definitely disappointed in myself,” Willis said. “I was coming through a comfort zone with my teammates. I felt like I let them down in a way.”

In a subdued tone, he agreed that it was a setback.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to look at it that way,” Willis said. “I want to move forward, try to put this behind me.”

Practice had been scheduled to start at 9 a.m. UNLV players -- except Willis -- watched film on UNR and took instructions from coach Lon Kruger and his assistants until 10:35 a.m., when they stretched and ran in the Cox Pavilion practice gym. Bellfield ran with the first team in drills.

Willis showed at 11:03 a.m., walked around to shake hands and apologize to his teammates, stretched a bit and took part in drills with the second team.

“He overslept,” said coach Lon Kruger, who confirmed that Bellfield will start against the Wolf Pack. “A silly thing.”

Willis had been making strides. He started UNLV’s past five games, in which it was 3-2. But he had scored 18 points in each of his previous two games, and he controlled the Rebels in their victory Wednesday at Fresno State.

Bellfield started at the point in the first three games, home victories over San Diego, Texas-Pan American and Northern Arizona.

Willis’s mother, Andrea McDonald, told the Sun less than a week ago that her son isn’t the most punctual person in the morning.

“He’s always sleeping too long,” she said. “He’s a sleeper. I was tempted on buying a special alarm for him, but (UNLV officials) have something for him. He’s up and at ’em.”

Willis could have used a special wake-up service Friday. He said he pondered using his roommate as a back-up alarm, but he took some cold medicine, went to sleep and didn’t think about it.

“Definitely a lesson learned, one of them times I probably needed help,” Willis said. “Didn’t happen that way. When I have a cold, it’s hard for me to hear (an alarm).

“It was one of them days … it’s never good when you’re late to practice. Starting is a privilege, something that needs to be earned back. I’ll try to take steps to get back to where I was.”