Big man Edwards making and hearing noise

Monday, Dec. 2, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

line By Rob Miech LAS VEGAS SUN

Lady Rebels fall

LAS VEGAS SUN

UCLA's Michelle Greco earned tournament MVP honors after leading the Bruins to a 72-64 victory over the UNLV women's basketball team to claim the 2002 Lady Rebel Shootout championship title Sunday night at Cox Pavilion.

Greco scored a game-high 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field and 9-of-10 from the free-throw line.

For the Lady Rebels (3-1), All-America candidate Constance Jinks tied Greco with a game-high 26 points. Junior InFini Robinson added 16 points.

J.K. Edwards heard the cheers that greeted his move to the bench about eight minutes into Saturday night's game against Washington at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The 6-foot-8, 240-pound junior tried tuning all that out, though, because there was more work to do. After a defeat, he will brood about what went wrong.

"I hate losing games," he said. "I am the world's worst loser, so I will do everything in my power to help us win."

Fortunately for Edwards, the Rebels are 3-0 with him on their roster. His junior college team only lost a handful of times and his high school team in Clemmons, N.C., also was successful. He has never played on a losing basketball team.

An hour after Saturday's 82-61 victory, Edwards sat in a front-row seat near the UNLV bench and laughed about the applause that was aimed at him with 12 minutes left in the first half.

"I won't pay attention," Edwards said. "I hear it and I really appreciate it. Yeah, I hear it and I like the recognition. I just hate to lose."

A generous portion of the crowd of 12,881 praised Edwards for his all-around hustle in the first eight minutes of what turned out to be his longest and most successful stint as a Rebel.

He said 'C' when asked to grade his first two games at UNLV. He sank a shot and grabbed four rebounds in 15 minutes against Portland State. Against Alabama-Birmingham, he had six points and nine boards in 19 minutes.

Teammate Odartey Blankson overheard and said it was more like a 'D.'

"You think a 'D,' too?" Edwards said to Blankson. "Yeah, I could have done way better those first two games. Tonight, I played like a 'B.' I could have played better. I had a lot of missed rebounds. Probably about a B-minus.

"I'm starting to really get the feel of how my teammates are going to play every night. So I'm just adapting to how they'll play, and to be in the right spots at the right times. Every night, I'm just trying to get double-doubles, trying to just show hustle and get my team inspired so we can play hard all game long."

Saturday, Edwards collected eight rebounds and 11 points in 25 minutes.

He often dove out of bounds, trying to save balls. He held his ground on rebounds with solid position and vise-like hands. Near the end of the first half, he recovered to bat away an interior lob.

Rebels coach Charlie Spoonhour repeatedly tells Edwards how important it is for him to defend and rebound, then the rest of his versatile game will flow. Edwards has been listening, and he was the talk of Spoonhour's staff late Saturday night.

"He's kind of separated a little bit," said assistant coach Deane Martin, whose recruiting persistence swayed Edwards toward UNLV instead of the Oklahoma Sooners and coach Kelvin Sampson out of Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa.

"I don't want to say that he's ahead of everyone else, but he's shown that he plays with a lot of energy, and he's shown that he'll try to defend and rebound. He has the potential to be pretty good. And as his conditioning gets better, he's gotten better."

UNLV was outrebounded by almost four a game last season, but it brought a plus 4.5 margin into Saturday's game, when it won the battle of the boards 42-30 against Washington. Last season, three Rebels averaged at least 3.5 rebounds a game. Now, six do.

The foundation of the stingy defense that Spoonhour favors is being laid, and it will be tested during a road stretch in which the Rebels play Nevada-Reno (Wednesday), Wisconsin (Saturday) and Bradley (Dec. 14).

Last season in the Mountain West Conference, only UNLV and Air Force had negative rebounding figures.

"That's what they want me to do, rebound and play defense ... then, my offense will come to me," Edwards said.

"I'm really not even worried about it. We have enough scorers on this team. It's a team game, and my teammates know to look for me when I'm open in the post."

He honed a deft passing touch at Indian Hills, and when he gets the ball back, Edwards will turn left or right and immediately look to sink a bank shot. At West Forsyth High in Clemmons, coach David Laton had Edwards take 40 bank shots from the right and 40 from the left, before and after every practice.

"I always look for the glass when I'm on the post," Edwards said.

His Division I baptism lasts another six weeks and includes games against Stanford, Santa Clara and at DePaul. His most challenging Mountain West foes will be 6-10 Uche Nsonwu-Amadi of Wyoming and 7-foot Matt Nelson of Colorado State.

"I'm really accustomed to playing against bigger guys," Edwards said.