Columnist Dean Juipe: Dismal day in store for Rebels

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2000 | 10:14 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@vegas.com or 259-4084.

If you are a basketball player on the men's team at UNLV, today may seem like the worst day of your life.

First off, there's no forgetting Monday night's game with Utah that didn't end until midnight at its site, Salt Lake City.

Then there was a miserable, albeit chartered, plane ride back to Las Vegas immediately afterward.

And now it's come back out on the court tonight at the Thomas & Mack Center and play some team called Florida Atlantic in a sham of a game that was poorly scheduled and done only as a favor to the opposing head coach, ex-Rebel Sidney Green.

Of course this all wouldn't have seemed so distasteful to the current Rebels had they not lost at Brigham Young last Saturday and had they not been taken to the woodshed by the Utes in a game that had to put its national-television audience to sleep.

No one expected this: 96-52, with UNLV out of it early and never able to rally against a team it had beaten just two weeks ago.

In the span of those two weeks there was a stunning 50-point turnaround in the Utes' favor in head-to-head meetings with the Rebels.

The only thing to be said on the plus side for UNLV is that the loss wasn't completely fatal, although it may have been if the Mountain West Conference were playing its postseason tournament anywhere other than Las Vegas. But with the MWC tourney here in two weeks, UNLV possesses a legitimate home-court advantage and can always motivate itself with the knowledge that by winning that event it may yet find its way into the NCAA Tournament.

But the Rebels didn't look anything like a tournament team against the Utes, and, possibly, the NCAA Tournament's Selection Committee may never forgive them for a one-sided loss to a team that was coming off a loss of its own.

But hey, aside from UNLV's win at New Mexico and its victory over Utah in their first game, the Rebels have had the look of an NIT team all along.

After what happened in Salt Lake City, their RPI may have been scrambled to R.I.P.

Utah fans had to wonder "How did these guys beat us?" after seeing UNLV in person. For the Rebels and their fans back home, it was two hours of disbelief compressed into a game that beforehand was billed as winnable.

There are two ways to look at what happened: Utah, tall and fundamentally sound, made every shot, grabbed every rebound and played wonderfully; or, UNLV failed to regroup after a disheartening loss two days earlier at Provo and was steamrolled in part because it became flustered and threw in the towel.

The Rebels couldn't get the ball inside and they weren't making anything from outside, either. Equally damaging, they were being overwhelmed at the other end of the floor by a team that looked as if it had something to prove.

If Utah played this well every time out it would be in the Final Four.

If UNLV played this poorly every time out it would be exiled to a lesser league, like the one that's stuck with Florida Atlantic.

Silver lining? There isn't one.

At a time when they could use a day to catch their breath and maybe even sulk, the Rebels have to play a meaningless game that will have no redeeming value.

Given the situation, good seats will be available.