Columnist Dean Juipe: Late reversal allows Rebels to alter image

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 11:35 a.m.

IN ONE WEEKEND the UNLV men's basketball team took everything written or said about it during the course of a seemingly unproductive season and made it outdated and obsolete. Everything -- analysis, fact, fiction, opinion and conjecture -- was reduced to deep-six rubble when the Rebels pulled off the sports story of the year in Las Vegas and won the Western Athletic Conference championship.

There has been a complete turnaround and it happened just like that.

Take head coach Bill Bayno as the leading for instance.

Under siege by numerous letter-to-the-editor writers within the past month, Bayno -- once again -- possesses the keys to the city. In all probability he will never have to face such harsh criticism again.

Not only that, his future is assured. Complaints that he can't coach are now permanently set aside, as is the notion he wouldn't succeed at UNLV and/or he might need to be replaced.

Saint Bill, that's how he'll be referred to from here on out. The city is his.

Likewise, the UNLV players who made it through the season and exceeded expectations at the end will forever be seen in a favorable light. Instead of going down as, perhaps, the most disappointing team in the program's history, now these Rebels will enjoy a celebrity status that will last a lifetime.

All because they closed the regular season with a flourish and with six straight wins, the last of which was downright extraordinary.

For a handful of those players, this reversal of fortune allows them to change the synopsis that was going to be written on their UNLV tombstones.

At the extreme is Mark Dickel. Remember, it was an anonymous teammate -- and not some Reno Air baggage jockey, as Bayno attempted to spin -- who slipped a note into Dickel's travel bag a few weeks ago, and the message not so politely asked him to quit. But after his clutch play in Saturday's tournament finale against New Mexico, Dickel not only gets a reprieve but gets a pat on the back from everyone who found fault and blamed him for the Rebels' rocky ways.

To a lesser extent, Kevin Simmons and Brian Keefe could also use a chiseler now that their legacies require rewriting. The two juniors, both transfers, were introduced to Las Vegans as sensational players who could piggyback the Rebels' return to greatness. For three-quarters of the season, however, they sputtered in and out of a hazy nightmare, neither able to match anticipations.

Then comes the WAC tournament and Keefe is hot and Simmons is a warrior.

It's secondary that this is how it was supposed to be all along, that Bayno is supposed to be a brilliant, young coach and that this team looked like Sweet 16 material back when the season began in October. It's secondary that the Rebels misfired so many times, or that they misfired at all.

All is forgiven as they head for Hartford to face a curious, by-the-book Princeton team in the first round of the NCAA playoffs.

Certainly the NCAA didn't do UNLV any favors, but that too is secondary today after a roundabout road has reached its prescribed destination.