Call him Trey-Lew

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2003 | 9:57 a.m.

SAN DIEGO -- After sitting out the 2001-2002 season to rehab a major knee injury, UNLV senior guard Jermaine Lewis knew it would probably take a little time to regain his outside shooting touch.

It took 21 games into his senior season, but that time has finally come. And not a moment too soon.

Lewis tied a career-high with 24 points, including 7-of-9 on 3-pointers, to lead UNLV (14-7, 3-4) to a 79-64 upset victory over San Diego State (12-8, 3-4) here on Tuesday night before a crowd of 7,575 at Cox Arena.

Lewis had connected on just 19 treys in 20 games before Tuesday night. He was shooting a miserable 25.7 percent from behind the arc, including just 19 percent in Mountain West Conference play. But Tuesday he was the offensive sparkplug for a UNLV squad that can best be described as schizophrenic the last couple of weeks.

"It took him a while to get his swagger back but he got it," forward Dalron Johnson said. "We've always had confidence in him. And for him to come out and shoot the ball like he did at the start of tonight's game was big for us because it really opened up the inside game."

It has been almost two years -- Feb. 26, 2001, to be exact -- since Lewis, who was averaging 9.3 points and had tied the school record for three-point percentage in a game (5-for-5 against New Mexico) -- tore his ACL in practice.

Lewis missed the final two games of that season and also the entire 2001-2002 campaign. The quiet Texan nicknamed "J-Lew" by his teammates struggled to shake off the rust after sitting out almost two years from game competition.

He finally appeared to get over the hump a little in Sunday afternoon's embarrassing 98-73 loss to USC, connecting on two of his four treys. That added confidence seemed to carry over to Tuesday.

"They were the same shots that I've taken all year but I hadn't been making them," the 6-foot-4 Lewis said. "Tonight I felt pretty good and I was making them. And they just kept coming to me and I just made them."

Lewis said he never lost faith in his ability earlier this season.

"(UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour) and all the coaches have been working with me on my shooting," he said. "I'm a good shooter. I just kept working on it and working on it and tonight it finally showed."

Lewis' shooting was just one of several reasons UNLV was able to bounce back again from another one-sided loss.

The Rebels caught the Aztecs off guard by opening the game in a seldom-used 2-3 zone defense. San Diego State, which had eight days to prepare for the contest, seemed confused on how to attack the zone and made just one of its first 11 shots. That early indecision enabled UNLV to get off to a confidence-boosting 11-3 lead en route to a 43-27 halftime advantage.

"It's been in the back of my mind for a long time because we've had so much foul trouble and the fact we get pretty tired," Spoonhour said. "We wanted to stay out of foul trouble and hoped that they would stand around."

The strategy worked to perfection.

Point guard Marcus Banks, who finished with 21 points, five assists and five rebounds, avoided the early foul problems that have slowed him in a number of games this season. Ditto senior forward Dalron Johnson (10 points, 6 assists, 1 foul) and center J.K. Edwards (9 points, 5 blocks, 3 steals).

"We've been practicing it all year but we've never brought it into a game," Banks said. "We only have 10 guys and Demetrius (Hunter) is hurt. That makes nine. We've got to save our bodies. We still have a lot of year left."

"I think they kind of caught us off guard a little bit with their zone," Aztec guard Tony Bland said. "I think it was a good job by UNLV's coaches to mix it up like that."

San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, who kept the media waiting for more than 30 minutes afterward while he talked with his team, sounded an awful lot like Spoonhour following the Rebels' 34-turnover fiasco against USC on Sunday.

"We were a team tonight I didn't know," Fisher said. "We were a team that played with a lack of emotion that I had not seen before. We were a team tonight that should have thrown the white flag up at halftime. And that's unacceptable.

"We had no leadership, no firepower, no energy and no intelligence. We were what I saw when Vegas played SC on Sunday. And we were Vegas."

Spoonhour continues to be dumbfounded by the Rebels' hit-and-miss season.

"We were so inept Sunday and in reality that probably worked in our favor tonight," Spoonhour said. "No amount of saying the right things -- and I know Coach Fisher does -- would make anybody think that we were going to play well tonight.

"This is just silly. We play good one day and bad the next. I can't remember who is the bad one, Dr. Jekyl or Mr Hyde? Hyde's the bad one? Well, tonight (we were) Dr. Jekyl."

Now which one will show up Friday night when UNLV hosts Mountain West co-leader BYU (17-5, 6-1) at the Thomas & Mack Center?

Stay tuned.