Spoonhour will try to rally troops against tough SDSU

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 | 9:04 a.m.

NEXT UP

What: UNLV at San Diego State

When: Today, 7 p.m.

Where: Cox Arena, San Diego

TV: Las Vegas ONE, Ch. 1 and 39

Radio: KBAD 920-AM

Line: SDSU by 3 1/2 points

Once again, the Rebels (13-7, 2-4) will be trying to erase the memory of an embarrassing loss.

Ten days ago, UNLV was hammered by Wyoming, 90-80, at the Thomas & Mack Center. But the Rebels came back two nights later to play their best game of the season in routing Colorado State, 90-57.

Now the Rebels will try to rebound from Sunday afternoon's disastrous 98-73 clunker against USC that saw them commit an almost unheard of 34 turnovers. To do that, they will have to defeat Steve Fisher's defending Mountain West Conference Tournament champions here.

So does UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour try to fire up his troops by pointing out they have been able to pick themselves off the canvas in similar circumstances?

"They know all that stuff," Spoonhour said. "They know how they've been feast, famine, feast, famine."

Spoonhour's goal for his squad tonight is really quite simple.

"What we need to do is go play a game where we play hard and smart and have a chance to win on the road," he said. "That's what we need to do."

Hard and smart are not exactly the kind of words that have been used to describe the Rebels lately. Ditto team chemistry. And there are those who would argue that the words "NCAA Tournament" also should be banned from the UNLV vocabulary after Sunday's debacle against the Trojans.

But the Rebels haven't thrown in the towel yet on their NCAA hopes, be it by putting together a miracle finish in the final eight games of Mountain West play or by winning the postseason tourney on their home floor March 13-15.

"I would think you would almost have to win the rest of your games (to get into the NCAA Tournament)," Spoonhour said. "That would get you in at 21-7. You'd have to win the rest of your games."

"There's no use in looking back on (the USC game)," senior forward Dalron Johnson said. "We've got to look forward to these last eight conference games and then getting ready for the conference tournament."

Point guard Marcus Banks, whose erratic play has mirrored the team the last couple of weeks, said he felt the Rebels were going to have to win the Mountain West Conference tournament anyway to get an NCAA bid.

"I felt that regardless," he said. "UNLV is not a team that's given anything. We have to go out and earn it.

"Regardless if we have the RPI or anything like that, I just want to get (to the NCAA Tournament)," Banks continued. "It doesn't matter what it takes. I want to win the Mountain West Conference championship, but we have to just take it day by day."