Friday, Jan. 17, 2003 | 9:59 a.m.
PROVO, Utah -- UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour was trying to put his team's 85-77 Mountain West Conference opening loss to BYU in perspective here Thursday night.
"It's the first of 14 (MWC games)," Spoonhour said. "I have a hunch a lot of people aren't going enjoy the trip to Provo ... unless they like to look at the mountains."
The Rebels (11-3, 0-1) became the 44th straight victim of the Cougars (12-4, 1-0) at the Marriott Center by once again digging themselves into an early first-half hole and then coming up a few plays short down the stretch.
BYU, behind the 3-point shooting of forward Mark Bigelow (21 points, 4-of-7 treys) and Travis Hansen (20 points, 2-of-3 treys), built a 43-33 halftime lead and led by as many as 15 points, 61-46, in the second half.
But the Rebels, behind the play of senior forward Dalron Johnson (25 points, 10 rebounds), rallied to cut the deficit to five points on three different occasions in the final 4:08 but could never get any closer.
"In the second half, we picked up the intensity and got it down to five, but then we would have a couple of missed shots and foul," Johnson said. "It was one-and-one and (BYU) would pull back away."
"Every possession and every play is going to mean something in this conference," Spoonhour said. "We've been saying that all year. Now maybe people will start believing that, including us."
Despite their poor start and an unusually off night by point guard Marcus Banks -- he finished with a respectable 16 points but was just 5-of-14 from the floor and had four turnovers -- the Rebels might still have pulled it out at the end if not for a big one that got away.
Rafael Araujo, the Cougars' 6-foot-11, 265-pound junior center who was a member of the Brazilian National Team at last summer's World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis, seemed to come up with the big rebound or basket down the stretch en route to a team-high 22 points and 15 rebounds.
Araujo, a junior college All-American at Arizona Western last season, took a recruiting trip to UNLV.
"I like Coach Spoon," Araujo said. "He's a good guy, you know? I like their guys. (It came down to) here or UNLV. I did the right decision. I'm really happy."
"He's 6-foot-11 and very strong," Spoonhour said. "And he got stronger as the game went on. He doesn't play over the rim, he plays alone because he knocks everybody around with his body, not his hands. He does a great job down there."
"We just didn't get it done at the defensive end," Johnson said. "In the second half down the stretch, they were getting three and four tip-ins in a row. That's our fault."
Although disappointed his squad couldn't put an end to the nation's longest home court winning streak, Johnson said he thought the Rebels would be able to rebound from Thursday night's loss in time to get ready for Monday night's game against Utah at the Thomas & Mack Center,
"It's behind us already," Johnson said before heading off for a postgame shower. "It's going to hurt for a while and whenever you look at the schedule and see the loss. But we'll move on and learn from it."
"This conference is going to be a real dogfight until the end," UNLV center J.K. Edwards said. "We can't let ourselves get too stressed over this game because there's still 13 more games to go. And I feel confident that we can do much better than we did tonight."
Edwards was whistled for an intentional foul in the first half after delivering a forearm shiver to Cougar forward Jake Shoff. "They were throwing 'bows (elbows)," Edwards said. "I caught two from 55 (starting forward Jared Jensen) and then one from that dude (but) ... it was just stupid to hit him back. Stupid." ... Araujo played the last eight minutes with four fouls. ... The Rebels got a solid effort off the bench from sophomore guard Ernest Turner (five points, two assists, one steal). ... Bigelow has hit 18 of his 37 3-point tries at the Marriott Center this year. ... Going into the game, BYU was 11-0 when holding opponents below 70 points but was 0-4 when the opposition had scored 70 or more points. ... The teams play again on Valentine's night at the Thomas & Mack Center.
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