Spoon: ‘It was pitiful’

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Feb. 10, 2003 | 10:06 a.m.

This was supposed to be a season to remember for UNLV's basketball program.

With the 1-2 all-Mountain West Conference punch of point guard Marcus Banks and forward Dalron Johnson along the addition of Georgetown sharpshooter Demetrius Hunter, many basketball experts felt the Rebels, not Wyoming, should be favored to win the MWC.

But barring a remarkable turnaround during the final five weeks of the season, the Rebels (13-7, 2-4) may best be remembered for their apparent record-breaking performance in Sunday's 98-73 loss to a middle-of-the-road and rebuilding USC (10-9) squad at the Thomas & Mack Center.

UNLV committed 34 turnovers, the most since registering 27 in a 1995 game against New Mexico State and the highest total since at least the 1992-93 season. That's as far back as school media guides list turnover statistics.

Give Charlie Spoonhour's squad credit, though. The Rebels may have had numerous mental lapses when it comes to breaking USC's 1-3-1 zone press as evidenced by their incredibly sloppy play on Sunday afternoon. But they also seemed to have a pretty easy time of describing the carnage afterward.

"Awful," Spoonhour said. "Just absolutely awful."

Spoonhour wasn't done.

"It was pitiful," he added.

"Thirty-four turnovers?" Johnson said. "It felt like 50."

For those in the announced crowd of 13,143 who weren't rooting for USC, it probably seemed closer to 100.

"That was almost three games worth of turnovers right there," said Hunter, one of the few Rebel bright spots with 12 points in just 15 minutes. "I don't know what to say. Their press rattled us and I don't know why because we play against that type of pressure every day in practice."

Banks, who once again was hampered by early foul problems, constant traps by a swarming Trojan defense intent on taking him out of the game and butter-fingered teammates who at times appeared to be suffering brain freeze, nearly finished with a triple-double: 8 points, 10 assists, 8 turnovers.

"I think our team more panicked than anything," Banks said. "I think (USC) just bullied our team."

Yes, bullied by the same USC team that only a month earlier had been bullied itself at home by an Ivy League school, Penn, 99-61.

Perhaps that loss was one of the reasons why Trojan coach Henry Bibby was gracious in analyzing his team's third straight victory. Either that or Bibby didn't want to give UNLV any bulletin board fodder in case the two teams get together again next month in the NIT.

"They're a good basketball team," Bibby said of the Rebels. "Sometimes this happens. Today was our day. We played very, very well. And things we did worked."

Especially the trapping 1-3-1 press.

"We haven't done much of that this year," Bibby said. "We've kind of experimented with it a little bit. It was good for us today."

It probably also didn't hurt that Banks was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday morning ripping USC guard Desmon Farmer and some of his teammates, whom Banks had outplayed in a summer league basketball game last year in Los Angeles.

Said Banks: "I'm not being cocky, but not any of those guys really impressed me. I held Desmon-- Farmer to what, two points? And that was in an NBA style-- game, 48 minutes."

Farmer finished with a game-high 22 points while backcourt mates Derrick Craven (17 points, 3 steals) and Errick Craven (15 points, 6 steals) also outplayed the Rebel star.

"There is no better guard in the country than Banks," Bibby said. "He's one of the best guards I've seen this year. And I thought one of the keys was containing him. ... We wanted to go at him. We wanted him to work harder. And we wanted him to get in foul trouble. And that's what happened. We wanted to take him out of the game as much as we could."