Rebels attain new low point in difficult win over High Point

Victoria Sun

Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2000 | 10:38 a.m.

Let the healing begin.

Two days after a demoralizing road loss to third-ranked Cincinnati, the UNLV men's basketball team returned home Tuesday to the Thomas & Mack Center to play little-known High Point University.

Because of the grisly nature of the loss to the Bearcats, the Rebels were expected to either struggle against the Panthers with memories of being soundly beaten replaying in their minds, or rebound and destroy High Point to make up for Sunday.

UNLV spent most of the game struggling, then ran past the Panthers, 72-53, in an ugly game that had its share of errant passes, unforced turnovers and missed baskets before an announced crowd of 10,563 that included basketball Hall of Famer Julius "Dr. J." Erving.

The Rebels improved to 9-3 while the Panthers fell to 6-6.

UNLV's Mark Dickel tied a career high with five 3-pointers and led all scorers with 19 points, and Kaspars Kambala contributed 16 points and nine rebounds.

For UNLV head coach Bill Bayno, the most important thing was getting the win.

"We had an unbelievable practice yesterday," Bayno said. "We got after it.

"We competed hard and had a great practice. Part of it (the reason for the disheveled game) is that they're human. They're still kids. They came out a little shell-shocked after Cincinnati.

"But I have nothing negative to say about this game. We were down early and we came back and beat them by 19. We did what we had to do."

Bayno said one of the things he asked his players to do was to ignore the negative things being written or said about them.

"I just want them to have fun," Bayno said. "They read the stuff that is written about them.

"I told them, 'Don't worry about that. Let's go play hard and have fun.' We are still a good team."

The words of wisdom Bayno imparted to the team before the game looked lost for the first eight minutes before the Rebels slowly found their way back into the game.

During that stretch, the Rebels made only two field goals, a layup by Kambala and a dunk by Chris Richardson, while the Panthers took a 17-4 lead.

"I just think we have a lack of confidence right now," Donovan Stewart said of the team's bad start. "Cincy took so much out of us."

Down by 13 with 12:05 left in the first half, Bayno said the players committed to play better defense during a huddle and it worked.

After High Point committed one of its 21 first-half turnovers, this one a five-second violation, Richardson made two free throws that helped the Rebels chip away at High Point's lead.

On the Panthers' next possession, Tim Wilson was called for a traveling violation and Richardson scored after Brotherson missed inside to make it 17-8.

From there, the Rebels picked up their defensive intensity and managed to go on a 17-8 run to tie the game 25-25 with 1:38 left in the half.

High Point head coach Jerry Steele gave the Rebels credit for not folding.

"My concern tonight after what happened to them was that they not jump all over us in the first five minutes," Steele said. "What happened to them early is the ball wouldn't go into the hole.

"Then a couple things happened. One, our guard (Mantas Ignatavicius) picked up his fourth foul. Then they turned up the pressure defensively and forced us to turn the ball over 21 times the first half."

But High Point did make things difficult for UNLV by playing a zone defense the entire game and outrebounding the Rebels 48-39.