Columnist Ron Kantowski: Rebels play mind games with fans

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 9:52 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Will the real UNLV basketball team please stand up? Or just sit down?

To tell the truth, I'm at the point where I really don't care which way the Rebels' crazy basketball world turns, just so long as it continues in the same direction.

Don't the Rebels know that with Arena Football getting started in earnest, we have choices to make?

I say that, of course, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. Which apparently is where the Rebels have had theirs since the conference season started.

How else do you explain getting blown out at home against Wyoming on Saturday night, and then beating its near equal, Colorado State, by 33 on Monday? Or getting run out of your building by a rec league-caliber team such as Southern Cal on a Sunday afternoon before making San Diego State look like a bunch of sidewalk surfers fewer than 48 hours later?

The Rebels have to be pulling our legs, messin' with our heads. They can't be this bad. Or that good.

Or can they?

The Rebels' biggest problem, aside from their inconsistency, might be the unrealistic expectations of their fans, many of whom seemed trapped in a bygone era where talent was hard to come by and going to class was optional.

As good as the Rebels were back in the day, let's also not forget they played in a CYO-like conference that virtually guaranteed their presence in the Big Dance. These days, it's an accomplishment just getting there.

Maybe the Mountain West isn't all that, but don't tell that to Arizona or North Carolina or anybody else who ran into Utah on its NCAA title game charge a few years back. That was also the year the Utes were bounced in the first round of the conference tourney. By UNLV. With Bill Bayno as coach.

Am I defending these Rebels? Well, kinda, sorta. Because up until the conference season began, everything was going according to plan. They were 11-3, having beaten just about everybody they were expected to, and having lost to everybody they weren't.

So it's only their performance over the last seven games that warrants criticism. The way I look at it, they've got one bad loss (Wyoming at home, since canceled by the win at SDSU), one semi-bad loss (at Air Force) and one loss that defies description (USC). But this isn't football. Everybody loses now and then, and sometimes they lose big. In fact, seven of this week's Top 10 have at least one double-digit defeat. And those are excellent teams.

UNLV is not an excellent team. Maybe not even a good one. But I wouldn't lay all that off on Charlie Spoonhour. He couldn't have anticipated that Demetrius Hunter's Achilles would turn into ground chuck, that Marcus Banks would disappear at the worst times, that until Tuesday night, when he made 7-of-9 from beyond the arc, that Jermaine Lewis, who was a good shooter prior to knee surgery, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he were standing on Old McDonald's back porch. Or that Ernest Turner wouldn't give back his scholarship.

Here's what I do put on Spoonhour: J.K. Edwards and James Peters, his two big recruits, are just OK. When the backcourt's either hurt, cold or not interested, they need to be better than that.

Spoonhour certainly has won with less, but at least he hasn't given up. That O-Zone (SDSU shot about 0-for-12 against it) he threw at the Aztecs Tuesday night was a master stroke.

Does he have any more tricks up his sleeve?

To tell the truth, it's hard to say.