Rebels dispose of Bradley with ease

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

A day after Christmas, Bradley suffered a major loss when leading scorer Phillip Gilbert, a senior guard, sustained a stress fracture in a leg that will sideline him for a few weeks.

UNLV, down to 10 scholarship players because of attrition and NCAA recruiting rules, battled to show the Braves no pity or empathy Sunday night inside the Thomas & Mack Center in the Rebels' 73-55 victory.

"We'll take what we can get," said UNLV senior center J.K. Edwards, who deflected a late Bradley threat by converting a three-point play on a power move.

Odartey Blankson, Edwards' low-post partner, said it would have been -- and was -- natural to ease up on the Braves in a stretch or two.

"When you first hear something like that, you probably get a little complacent, like you could almost do anything on defense ... not anything, but, you know, slack off a little bit," Blankson said.

"But they still have Division I players out there and they still have a good team, with good athletes who play hard."

Who also never held the lead after UNLV junior swingman Romel Beck drilled a 3-point shot just 57 seconds into Sunday's game.

Gilbert averaged 20.2 points in Bradley's first 10 games.

"A neat kid and a good player," Rebels coach Charlie Spoonhour said of Gilbert.

Tenth on Bradley's career scoring list, Gilbert scored 23 points in an overtime defeat to UNLV last season in Peoria, Ill. That typified a tight series in which the Rebels won all three previous games by a total of four points.

Sunday's anomaly could be directly attributed to Gilbert's absence.

"I expected our team to come in and compete against a very good basketball team," said second-year Bradley coach Jim Les, "and for us to play a very solid game, both offensively and defensively. We didn't do that."

The Braves (7-4) did have an admirable faction of fans among the announced crowd of 12,196. The combination of that loud group, a 2-2-1 full-court press and a 2-3 zone defense, though, did not help against UNLV (7-3) in the first half.

Rebels freshman guard Michael Umeh sank a 3-pointer with 12:27 to the half that, at 20-10, gave his team its third 10-point advantage.

Six minutes later, he contributed a fling-in and a bullet pass to John Winston for an easy basket during a 7-0 run that pumped UNLV's lead to 30-18. Another 3-point shot by Umeh extended the lead to 35-21.

Umeh had 10 points, on 4-for-5 shooting, in 22 minutes, on a night when he and Winston played as much time as UNLV's backcourt combination as Demetrius Hunter and Jerel Blassingame.

"He did, he came up big tonight," Blankson said of Umeh. "He did a good job pushing the ball up the court, he attacked the rim hard and he hit open shots. He did well tonight."

Les chose not to press or zone on defense much in the second half. Because of his team's woeful 35 percent shooting in the first half, he had them focus on a high-low game, for high-percentage baskets, in the final 20 minutes.

"Jim's smart," Spoonhour said.

Still, the game was a chore without Gilbert.

Bradley did whittle its deficit back to 10 points with less than 10 minutes left, then Umeh struck again with a fifth-gear fastbreak layin on the left side, with his left hand, and was fouled.

He missed the free throw, but Edwards hauled it in and put it off the glass on the left side to make it 58-44.

Exhibiting the peskiness that kept Les in the NBA for seven years, however, the Braves stuck around until the final three minutes.

Edwards closed them out with his strong move in the right post, bank shot and then completion of a three-point play with a free throw to boost the UNLV edge to 66-51.

"I was basically thinking to get it in the goal and the 'and one,' " Edwards said. "We were letting momentum go, and I was trying to get it back on our side."

Mission accomplished in a sluggish game in which neither team shot better than 45 percent from the field or 64 percent from the line, or had more assists than turnovers.

"It was kind of sloppy," Blankson said. "There were a lot of turnovers (38), and it was slow. But we both were coming off the holidays. Everyone needs to get their legs back, but we have them back and we got into the flow tonight."

Esteemed official Ed Hightower worked Sunday's game. In the first half, he instantly quelled Les, working up some steam, when he threw both arms out, palms down, and a glare Les' way. Les turned his attention toward Gerry Pollard, who works many Midwest games. "Gerry!" Les yelled when a Pollard call favored UNLV with seven minutes left. "What are you doin' here? And we brought you with us!" ... Montana landed in Las Vegas over the weekend, which Spoonhour discovered when he accidentally walked by a Grizzlies' practice on a Cox Pavilion practice court ...

Blankson, recruited by Montana coach Pat Kennedy when he was at DePaul, had 14 points and 13 boards Sunday for his third consecutive double-double, and the fifth in his last six games.