Rebels to open against Badgers

Steve Addy

Wednesday, May 30, 2001 | 10:54 a.m.

The Rebels' first schedule under new basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour is a little unusual.

Instead of a soft touch in their 2001-02 opener, they will host rugged Wisconsin on Nov. 17.

Instead of a traditional conference opener on Saturday or Monday, UNLV will start its third Mountain West season on Sunday, Jan. 6, by visiting Air Force.

For good measure, there's also a Tuesday game at New Mexico on Feb. 5 and a challenging late-season stretch of five games in 10 days (Feb. 9-18).

Otherwise, there's the usual assortment of tough games (at Cincinnati on Nov. 24, at Alabama-Birmingham on Dec. 8) and easy marks (Nicholls State on Nov. 20, Florida International on Feb. 13).

"There's a little bit of everything in there," Spoonhour said. "It looks hard to me. I don't see any easy ones.

"Our league is going to be very good. I don't see anybody we're going to overpower. We won't have a lot of margin for error."

Most of the schedule was set before Spoonhour was hired March 29, but tinkering was necessary. As part of their NCAA sanctions, the Rebels are prohibited from playing in any exempt tournaments this season, so they had to dump the Preseason NIT and add three opponents.

Also, new Louisville coach Rick Pitino pulled out of a nonconference game, so the Rebels replaced the Cardinals with DePaul on Sunday, Feb. 3. UNLV was supposed to play at New Mexico the next night, but the Lobos agreed to delay the game a day.

Like DePaul, Florida International also had to be scheduled during the conference season, mostly because of a lack of November dates at the Thomas & Mack Center. The Rebels have only one home game from Nov. 21 through Dec. 19.

"Between the rodeo and finals week, we lose 18 days," Spoonhour said. "We had to find ways to fit games in. But there is no point in worrying about it."

Of scheduling Wisconsin as the season opener (after two exhibitions), Spoonhour said, "From a coaching perspective, most years you wouldn't want to start with Wisconsin. They are a well-disciplined team, an exceptionally good opponent."

The Mountain West hasn't officially released its schedule because ESPN is still settling its Big Monday lineup, but UNLV senior associate AD Jerry Koloskie said the Rebels' dates are firm.

This much is also certain: Neither UNLV-Wyoming game will be on Big Monday, because both are on Saturday (Jan. 19 here, Feb. 16 in Laramie). The Rebels won two thrillers vs. the Cowboys last season -- 80-78 at Laramie on Dalron Johnson's desperation 3-pointer and 106-102 here behind Trevor Diggs' 49 points in the season finale.

This season's visit to Laramie will come during the hardest part of UNLV's schedule: five games in a 10-day span. The Rebels will host BYU (Feb. 9), Utah (Feb. 11) and Florida International (Feb. 13) before visiting Wyoming (Feb. 16) and Colorado State (Feb. 18).

"Players love that, because they don't have to practice much," Spoonhour said. "If you're playing well, it's a wonderful thing. But if you're struggling, you don't have much time for preparation and it works against you."

The Las Vegas Showdown will be Dec. 22 when UNLV hosts Texas. Stanford and BYU meet in the first game of the doubleheader.

The Mountain West tournament will be at the Thomas & Mack Center for the third straight year March 7-9, and it will return in 2003 before going to the Pepsi Center in Denver for 2004 and 2005.