Bricks from foul line costly for Rebels in defeat to Rice

Steve Carp

Monday, Feb. 15, 1999 | 10:34 a.m.

HOUSTON -- After losing a 78-72 track meet to UNLV last month, there was no way Rice wanted to get into a running game with the Rebels Saturday. A nice leisurely stroll was coach Willis Wilson's preference when it came to gait.

But the pace that Wilson got was even better. How about no pace? As in standing still, 15 feet from the basket?

UNLV couldn't run for 40 minutes. And it had trouble maintaining any kind of speed as the ironic toot of the referee's whistle in the Rebels' favor proved to be their undoing.

Call it basketball's version of stop-and-go traffic. Every time a UNLV player went to the foul line Saturday at Autry Court, you could sense the Owls were smiling. And why shouldn't they, with the Rebels tossing up brick after brick from the charity stripe, to where they made just 50 percent of their 24 tries.

That more than anything got this crucial two-game road trip off to a bad start for 7-2 UNLV, which remained in first place despite the 59-55 loss to Rice. But that lead is a tenuous one-game edge headed into tonight's game at Tulsa.

The usually reliable Kevin Simmons had the toughest night of all, going just 6-of-13 from the line. A 72-percent shooter, Simmons never found his rhythm at the stripe and along with his teammates, left a dozen potential points by the wayside.

If UNLV converts just half of those misses, it wins the game.

"None," Simmons, who scored 21 points, said when asked for an explanation for his struggles at the line. "And that's what lost the game. Six of 13 is not going to make it."

It was becoming bizarre, if not downright adventurous every time UNLV went to the line. Only once did the Rebels manage to make two straight foul shots, that honor going to Shawn Marion, who canned a pair with 12:03 to play in the game.

"It's a little frustrating," Marion, who scored 21 points as well, said of the misses that contributed to the loss that halted the team's four-game win streak. Marion, a 70-percent shooter going into the game, was 5-of-8 from the stripe.

Perhaps coach Bill Bayno should have seen it coming. After all, the Rebels shot just 30 percent from the line at Air Force last week. And in the team's four WAC road games, only once has UNLV eclipsed its team average of 62.1 percent -- that coming at SMU where the Rebels made 12 of 17 tries (71 percent) in a 72-62 loss.

"You've gotta make them, that's for sure," Bayno said.

Overall, it was a lousy night shooting the ball. The Rebels shot just 39 percent from the floor and were just 3-of-17 from the 3-point arc. Yet, they had a six-point lead with 6:13 to play and couldn't put Rice away.

Just one field goal the rest of the way for UNLV (a Mark Dickel layup with 4:11 left) and the re-emergence of Robert Johnson for Rice down the stretch allowed the Owls to come back and stay in the race for the top two spots in the WAC Mountain Division at 7-4 (16-7 overall).

Johnson, who was the WAC's leading scorer going into the game at 22.4, was held under his average with 21 points. But the 6-4 senior hit a pair of huge 3-pointers in the final five minutes to lead his team to victory in what was his final home game.