Columnist Steve Guiremand: Get ready for wild year in the MWC

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2002 | 10:01 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. He can be reached at steveg@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-2324.

If you are a UNLV men's basketball fan and believe that good teams find a way to win close games while bad teams find a way to lose them, you have to believe the Rebels' recent three-game road trip was a good omen.

The Rebels eked out an 82-80 win at Nevada-Reno to open the trip, thanks to point guard Marcus Banks' floater with just .4 seconds left. They ended it last Saturday night in Peoria, Ill., with an 85-83 overtime victory over Bradley on a 3-pointer by Dalron Johnson with .5 seconds left.

In what figures to be a super competitive Mountain West Conference this year, these frantic finishes figure to be the norm. And for the Rebels to already have two buzzer-beating wins before Christmas can only bring the team extra confidence.

It's still early but it looks like this could be the most competitive Mountain West Conference race since the league was formed.

Preseason favorite Wyoming (6-2) scored an impressive non-conference win over Bobby Knight's Texas Tech Red Raiders on Saturday night in something called the Casper Shootout. What makes that win even more eye-popping is that Steve McClain's squad did it without star center Uche Nsonwu-Amadi, who is still sidelined with a knee injury suffered last month at the Great Alaska Shootout.

BYU (7-1) is ranked No. 7 in the nation in RPI by College-RPI.com, losing only to Creighton on the road. The Cougars, who won just one road game last season, have already won four times away from the Marriott Center and are a much more physical team thanks to the addition of 6-foot-10 junior college transfer Rafael Araujo.

Utah (5-3) has overcome a slow start in the Maui Invitational and looked like it might have improved more than any team in the conference in the last month before losing a close one at in-state rival Utah State last night. And the Utes figure to get even stronger in a few weeks when Australian forward Andrew Bogut is cleared to play.

Even teams in the lower echelon of the conference look to be much improved.

Colorado State (8-2), coming off an injury and suspension plagued 12-18 campaign, cruised past Washington State over the weekend and has won nine straight games at Moby Arena.

Air Force (5-2) continues to perfect Joe Scott's Princeton-style offense. The Falcons set a school record with just five turnovers in one game earlier this year and shot a blistering 52.6 percent from 3-point range (40-of-76) during one recent three-game stretch.

San Diego State (4-3), the surprise winner of last year's MWC Tourney, has added three impact players in the last week in McDonald's All-American Evan Burns, Arizona transfer Travis Hanour and Oregon State transfer Chris Manker. The Aztecs gave No. 1 Arizona all it could handle before losing, 89-81, last week.

Even arguably the weakest team in the conference, New Mexico (3-3), figures to squeak out its share of upsets thanks to The Pit, one of the nation's toughest places for a visiting team to play.

Following his team's 101-78 victory over a solid Tennessee-Martin squad on Tuesday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour was asked what it meant to his team's psyche to win the two early road games in such dramatic fashion.

"We at least know we can do it twice," Spoonhour replied.

The Rebels probably will have to do it quite a few more times before March if they hope to make it to the NCAA Tournament. But at least the early results are promising.

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