Miners defeat Rebels 62-50

Steve Carp

Saturday, Jan. 17, 1998 | 10:53 a.m.

EL PASO, Texas -- UNLV is finally whole, but the Rebels are still missing something.

A consistent offense.

It has been a constant struggle all season on the road for Bill Bayno's club to score and Saturday was no exception. Rushing their shots, being impatient and then being forced to work hard for the majority of their points, the Rebels found themselves in an uphill battle against Texas-El Paso and never got it together as the Miners came away with 62-50 victory.

The long-awaited debut of Kevin Simmons was of little solace to UNLV at the Don Haskins Center. A year and a half away from the court produced predictable results offensively from the 6-foot-8 junior from Brooklyn, N.Y.

Simmons, who sat out a year after transferring from UC Irvine and was forced to miss the first 14 games of the season while serving an NCAA-imposed suspension for accepting extra benefits from a Florida sports agent, scored eight points and grabbed five rebounds in 26 minutes in his first game back.

Simmons admitted he was a little rusty.

"I didn't play well," he said. "I could've done more."

Perhaps. But while Simmons could use his year and a half hiatus as a legitimate excuse, his teammates couldn't. The Rebels shot a season-low 33 percent from the field in producing their lowest point total of the year.

Keon Clark finished with 16 points, but it came on 8-of-15 shooting and along with 10 rebounds and five blocked shots, it wasn't enough to prevent UNLV's second straight loss, which dropped the Rebels to 1-2 in the WAC MOuntain Division, and 8-7 overall.

"We all have to look in the mirror and see what we need to do," said Bayno. "We didn't make shots, and that's the tough thing."

As in Thursday's loss to New Mexico, UNLV started strong as Tyrone Nesby scored seven of the Rebels' first nine points. But UTEP kept its composure, continued to plug away and went to work on the boards.

The Miners had 28 first-half rebounds and got star center Sharif Fajardo active. Fajardo responded with 15 of his game-high 23 points in the first half as the Miners took a 30-23 lead.

UNLV made just two field goals over the final five minutes and trailed 34-27 at halftime. The Rebels shot 33 percent from the floor due in the most part to their lack of patience.

The offense continued to struggle into the second half. Clark hit a turnaround jumper from the right side 14 seconds into the half, but UNLV's next field goal didn't come until nearly six minutes later. By then, UTEP had expanded its lead to 42-29 and the closest the Rebels would get the rest of the way is seven, 42-35, with 11:06 to play.

Not that the Rebels didn't have their chances to get back in it and maybe pull it out. Over the final 10 minutes, UNLV had 11 different opportunities to get the deficit below eight. Each time, they failed to do so, thus costing the Rebels momentum.

But the Miners did what they needed to do, which was control the boards and contest shots. UTEP held a 54-31 edge on the glass and forced the Rebels to make just 1 of 12 attempts from the 3-point arc. Nesby, who had 11 points, made UNLV's lone trey, which came on the first possession of the game.

It was a big win for Haskins' team, which improved to 11-4 overall, and more importantly, 2-2 in the WAC.

"We've had a lot of defensive efforts like that this year," Haskins said. "I mde a prediction that if we gave up 70, we wouldn't win."

He didn't need to worry. His Miners allowed just 50 and it was another tough night for Bayno's club in trying to generate some offense on the road.

"We need to get back in the gym and work on being a better basketball team," Bayno said. "Adding Keon and Kevin, I knew it would take time."