Thursday, March 12, 1998 | 11:11 a.m.
HARTFORD, Conn. -- You're not allowed to have promotions during the NCAA Tournament. After all, the show is supposed to sell itself.
So who was UNLV to think it could hold one of those "Turn Back The Clock Night" promotions and think it could get away with it?
What was Bill Bayno's team doing Thursday night?
Jacking up shots. Not contesting the other team on the perimeter. Turning it over.
It was one of the mid-season horror shows from the Thomas & Mack Center where the only thing missing was some stripper wannabe trying to win a cellular phone by catching a beach ball dropped from the rafters.
To paraphrase Kenny Rogers, you picked a fine time to leave, UNLV.
That the Rebels were bounced from their first appearance at the Big Dance in seven years by Princeton was no surprise. The Tigers, after all, lived up to their billing as the No. 8 team in the nation and the fifth-ranked team in the NCAA East Regional. But it was the way the Rebels fell 69-57 at the Hartford Civic Center that had everyone perplexed.
"It was strange," guard Mark Dickel said. "We were playing so well. All of a sudden, we can't score."
One minute, these were the same Rebels who had played their way into this tournament by hitting shots, defending strong, looking for each other and playing together. The next minute (actually, the next 8:50), it was as if someone had thrown them into a time tunnel, zapped them with an ultrasonic ray and it was January in Albuquerque.
"Against them, you really have to execute," said junior Brian Keefe, who scored 15 points but none during a 20-0 Princeton run that broke the game open late in the first half.
"We didn't always do that. And when a team is running 30 seconds off the clock then hits a three, it's a little frustrating. Then you try and get it back quick and that doesn't work."
Kevin Simmons, who scored the two baskets that sandwiched Princeton's 20-0 run over that 8:50 span, said it was like someone had turned the lights out on the Rebels.
"The shots just stopped dropping," he said, shaking his head. "We had a lot of wide-open shots and we can't get one to fall. The other team does what they want and you can't stop it."
By the time the slide stopped, it was halftime and UNLV was down 35-22. It had virtually no shot of coming back, given the way Princeton milks every possession.
"I've always felt the best defense against them is offense," Bayno said. "You've got to match baskets with baskets."
But the Rebels couldn't match. And even when they got their second wind and made an 11-2 run midway through the second half to cut a 14-point PU lead to five, the Tigers didn't panic.
They merely took Bayno's advice and matched UNLV's run with a 12-2 spurt of their own -- all on layups and free throws.
It's not like UNLV didn't try to do it right. It did start out contesting those 3-pointers and keeping the back door closed. But 12 minutes isn't long enough, especially against a disciplined team which couldn't find the panic button if you dropped it in its lap.
"Not a lot of people like to play a lot of defense," Princeton's Gabe Lewullis said. "We want to force teams to play us for 25 seconds if possible. And after 20 seconds, 25 seconds, if we get an easy layup, it's got to be hard to take."
The grim faces in the UNLV locker room afterward confirmed it.
"It was real tough because they're so patient," Dickel said.
Added senior Tyrone Nesby, who finished his UNLV career with a team-high 19 points: "You've got to give Princeton's guys a lot of credit. They came back on us and started hitting those shots. The first one went down, then the second, then the third. It was to the point where I was wondering what was happening."
What happened was the Tigers figured out UNLV's matchup zone, got the shots they wanted, started making them and saw their confidence grow. For the first time in three weeks, someone had an answer for what UNLV was doing and the Rebels couldn't respond.
"I should have switched back to man-to-man faster," Bayno said. "Our zone got us that lead and they just figured it out and hit big shots. That was the game."
And the end to a wild season. UNLV shook a lot of bad habits, made it to the 20-win mark for the second straight year and returned to the NCAAs after a seven-year absence. The Rebels also earned brought a modicum of respect to a program that had disappeared from the national concsiousness.
But in the end, it was a loss similar to many of those during the middle of the season.
That, more than losing to Princeton, may have been the most disappointing thing about the way this 20-13 campaign concluded.
Notes
* TYRELL LIVES DREAM: He was as long a shot as the team itself to get here, but the records will show that UNLV's final basket of the 1997-98 season was scored by senior walk-on Tyrell Jamerson. The former Western High player grabbed a rebound and scored on a layin with 31.3 seconds left to make his one-time NCAA appearance count for something. "I had fun being with the guys," Jamerson said. "A lot of people would have liked to have been in my position."
* TRADITION CONTINUES: It took seven years, but another Rice got to play in an NCAA Tournament. UNLV junior Grant Rice joined his older brother Dave as having had the opportunity to be part of the Big Dance after playing the final minute against Princeton and grabbing a rebound to get his name in the books. "I thought about that," he said of carrying on his brother's legacy. "But it was a goal for myself to get to the NCAAs and everything was the way I thought it was be. They put on a great show here. Everything was first class." Dave Rice, currently a UNLV assistant, was a member of UNLV's 1990 National Championship 1991 Final Four teams.
* TOUGH NIGHT FOR YOUTH: They'll probably get another chance, but their inaugural NCAA experience won't be a sweet one for freshmen Greedy Daniels, Kaspars Kambala, Donovan Stewart and sophomore Issiah Epps. The quartet combined for just four points (all from Stewart), four rebounds (two each by Stewart and Kambala) and Epps fouled out in just five minutes. Daniels, hampered by that sore right hamstring and an upset stomach, played just two minutes.
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