Rebels hurt by inside prowess

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 | 9:21 a.m.

STANFORD, Calif. -- When it comes to places of higher learning, it doesn't get much better than Stanford University.

And to hear UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour tell it, the Rebels (5-2) may have come to the right place to pick up a few basketball lessons while losing to 13th-ranked Stanford, 86-71, on Saturday afternoon at Maples Pavilion.

"This game will be good for us when we start playing against people in our league like BYU and Utah," Spoonhour said. "That's the same thing you're going to be looking at."

Or looking up at.

Mike Montgomery's Cardinal (5-0), despite playing without its two best players in swingman Josh Childress (foot) and point guard Chris Hernandez (back), used it superior size and depth to once again pound the smaller Rebels into submission.

Stanford, which outrebounded UNLV, 54-27, in a 77-66 victory at the Thomas & Mack Center a year ago, this time held a 38-18 edge on the boards as 6-foot-10, 230-pound senior forward Justin Davis (21 points, 10 rebounds) and 6-foot-10, 265-pound junior center Rob Little (8 points, 5 rebounds) shut down the middle and forced the smaller Rebels to rely mainly on jump shots. Even 6-foot-10 backup forward Matt Haryasz (10 points in 13 minutes) dominated inside.

"They definitely beat up on us today," said Rebels forward Odartey Blankson, who finished with just 10 points and 5 rebounds before fouling out. "We have to regroup and try and come back strong on Thursday (against Northern Arizona at the Thomas & Mack)."

"They played well," said senior center J.K. Edwards, who had 12 points and 3 rebounds in his first 18 minutes of action this season. "They played strong and we came up very, very short down there. Not a little short, very, very short."

If misery likes company, the Rebels could at least take some solace in the fact that Stanford did pretty much the same thing to No. 1-ranked Kansas a week earlier.

"That was the thing that impressed me when they played Kansas," Spoonhour said. "Kansas, for the first time in my memory, didn't have a presence in the paint. We at least two or three times did establish that. And we're going to have to understand that when we don't have something in there to throw it back out."

Fortunately for the Rebels, they still have five more games left to shore up and muscle up their post defense before they open Mountain West Conference play against Utah on Jan. 12 at the Thomas & Mack Center. And UNLV still has almost two months to go before their first game against preseason Mountain West favorite BYU and muscular 6-foot-11, 280-pound center Rafael Araujo, who is playing like an NBA lottery pick these days.

Spoonhour hinted that Blankson, who at 6-foot-7 and 220-pounds was giving away 3 inches and at least 10 pounds to Davis, could possibly see some time at the small forward spot in the future against bigger squads.

"There may be a time this year where we play O-dot (Blankson) at the three and play Louis (Amundson), J.K. and James (Peters) on the inside and see what happens then," Spoonhour said.

For now, the Rebels now are just happy to be heading home to play their next six games. UNLV went a very respectable 2-1 on their three-game trip with an upset win at USC and a convincing victory against a Loyola Marymount squad that lost in overtime at UCLA on Saturday night.

"We did OK going 2-1 on the road," Blankson said. "But as a player you want to win every game. Maybe coaches look at it like that or the fans, but we want to win every game when we step out on that court. And we believe we can win every game. But tonight (Stanford) outplayed us on both ends of the court. We have to regroup."

"Realistically, I'm happy," Spoonhour said of his team's 2-1 road trip. "But I think we should have played better (at Stanford). ... But I believe playing a team like Stanford will be a good learning experience for us down the road."

"Nah, I'm good," Hunter said when asked about the injury.

But Spoonhour admitted that Hunter, who scored just six points on 2 of 8 shooting and had no rebounds in 19 minutes, was bothered the sore ankle.

"I think it is (bothering him)," Spoonhour said. "I thought he was limping at the end when he played ... when he chasing (Stanford guard Mike) Lottich."

It certainly didn't help Hunter that the springy court at Maples Pavilion resembled a wooden trampoline.

"That's a strange floor," Spoonhour said. "I personally don't like that floor at all. ... But that floor wasn't what beat us."