Columnist Dean Juipe: NCAA errs in shunning UNLV men

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 11, 2002 | 9:12 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

There doesn't appear to be an uproar of protest about it, yet there's reason to take offense at the omission of UNLV from the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

As best as I could tell Sunday, most in this community were resigned to seeing the Rebels bypassed and, instead, accept a bid in the lesser National Invitation Tournament. Even head coach Charlie Spoonhour may have seen the slight as inevitable, having gone off on a recruiting mission rather than sit glued to the TV.

Yet it's arguable that the decision to skip UNLV is further evidence of a stigma that doggedly clings to the university and stands as a reminder of the hostilities that once raged between the school and collegiate sports' governing body.

The NCAA, we can safely say again, rarely seems inclined to grant UNLV any favors.

In this case, its handpicked selection committee overlooked the Rebels in spite of these pertinent facts: they reached the Mountain West Conference title game; they won 12 of their most recent 15 games; they finished 20-10; and, as evidenced by their trio of breathtaking games in the conference tourney, they're playing their best ball of the season and playing better than many of the teams that are advancing to the Big Dance.

UNLV has also seen its RPI steadily improve and today it stands at No. 51, which, on the surface, would seem to indicate it belongs in a field that includes 65.

When you get right down to it, the Rebels had a far better case for inclusion into the tournament than either Wyoming or Utah. But both of those teams received a favorable nod, which is particularly disturbing for UNLV fans in that the Rebels were still playing in the MWC tournament after the Cowboys and Utes had long since gone home.

Supposedly, the selection committee puts a premium on playing well down the stretch but there's no evidence of that contingency coming to the aid of the Rebels. I mean, it's nice that the Mountain West got three teams into the tournament but UNLV should have been one of them.

Skeptics counter that the Rebels would have been a "one and out" team in the NCAA Tournament in that their lack of team height would be thoroughly exposed and their season would come to an inglorious conclusion in a first-round game. They add that the Rebels are better off in the NIT, where they're actually a threat to advance and maybe even win the whole thing.

But that fails to take into account the premise that the NCAA Tournament is a reward and that UNLV merits a reward for its impressive closing kick.

Of course the Rebels have company in this dissed boat, with Virginia -- once ranked as high as No. 4 -- and Butler -- 25 wins and all -- also shunned by those who control the tournament. Yet those teams were on the skids the last couple of weeks and therefore not entitled to a great deal of sympathy.

UNLV deserved better and it should have been picked at the expense of Utah, if nothing else.

Perhaps it's "no harm, no foul" if Spoonhour and his team have already made peace with what has transpired, but that hardly softens the blow.

Maybe it wasn't a glaring error and maybe there's no groundswell of indignation, but I thought the Rebels did enough to get in.