Columnist Dean Juipe: Rebels flop in spite of precautions

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 3, 2000 | 10:04 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.

Citing Y2K concerns, Bill Bayno had his UNLV men's basketball team fly to Cincinnati last Thursday in advance of the new year and well in advance of Sunday's game with the third-ranked Bearcats.

What Bayno didn't express was a desire to keep a parental-like eye on his players on New Year's Eve, as if leaving them alone in Las Vegas was asking for trouble.

So he had them hole up in a Cincinnati hotel room, where, presumably, the guys did nothing but concentrate on facing the best team they'll see this season.

In retrospect, they may as well have been out drinking, carousing and joining the millennium revelry.

Playing terribly and with every one of their weaknesses exposed by a breathtakingly athletic Cincinnati team, the Rebels return to Las Vegas as the victims of the definitively lost weekend.

They couldn't have had fun and they've at least temporarily seen the wind escape from their season like a punctured balloon. In the face of a very strong test, they looked awful.

Lou Kelly, where are you?

He wouldn't have affected the outcome of Sunday's 106-66 burial in Cincy, but Kelly will, at long last, be in uniform for the Rebels when they resume their season Tuesday against the type of opponent that has allowed the team to be 8-3 without showing any improvement. Yes, he'll be here for the game with High Point.

The Rebels will be 9-3 after that one, yet they won't escape the knowledge that they are miles behind front-running teams like Cincinnati. The Bearcats are all the things the Rebels used to be, and that's a crushing reality for basketball fans in Las Vegas.

Of course the Rebels were 18-point underdogs and they weren't going to beat the Bearcats except under the most unlikely of scenarios, but there had been considerable talk of being competitive and maybe keeping the score marginally interesting. But UNLV did neither, falling behind 11-0 and taking a painful beating over the course of the next two hours.

The game was decided early as Cincinnati manhandled the Rebels, blocking everything in the air in the lane and brandishing the type of full-court press that can stymie a team that may be below average when it comes to handling the ball. The pressure seemed to baffle the team as a whole but especially point guard Mark Dickel, who, in the face of double coverage, would panic and pull up his dribble.

Cincinnati smothered Dickel out high and center Kaspars Kambala down low, and with only Trevor Diggs remotely warm the Rebels fell further and further behind until the word embarrassing was on everyone's lips.

While the Rebels knew they had to hold Cincinnati to 60 or so points to have a chance to win, instead they played the role of patsies for a truly talented team that might very well win the national championship this year. The freewheeling style of play that had allowed UNLV to rank fifth in the country in scoring (at 88 points per game) backfired when the Rebels could neither match the Bearcats in athleticism nor in the rudiments of the game.

Seventeen turnovers in the first half, and 24 for the afternoon, led directly to a loss that won't easily be forgotten. In an otherwise peaceful and serene new year, the Rebels have opened with a dud and are stuck with a hangover that simply can't be aspirined away.