Rebels ride into Wyoming for a huge one

Steve Guiremand

Monday, March 3, 2003 | 10:09 a.m.

NEXT UP

What: UNLV at Wyoming

When: Tonight, 9.

Where: Arena Auditorium

TV: ESPN, Ch. 30

Radio: KBAD 920-AM

LARAMIE, Wyo. -- UNLV point guard Marcus Banks expects tonight's Big Monday showdown with defending Mountain West Conference champion Wyoming to be played with the intensity of an NCAA tournament game.

There's a good reason.

The winner of tonight's game between the Rebels (18-8, 7-5) and Cowboys (19-7, 7-4) will take a big step closer to an NCAA tournament bid. The loser will likely have to win next week's Mountain West tournament in Las Vegas to participate in March Madness.

With the Mountain West rated the nation's sixth strongest conference in RPI ratings, the feeling among conference officials is that the league will get three NCAA bids.

With Utah (24-5, 9-2, No. 14 RPI) and BYU (19-7, 8-3, No. 19 RPI) considered locks for two of those berths, that leaves Wyoming (No. 55 RPI) and UNLV (No. 43 RPI) left to battle for the final spot, barring a surprise winner in next week's MWC tournament.

One criteria the NCAA tournament selection committee looks strongly at is head-to-head competition. Another is how strongly you finish in your last 10 games.

Wyoming defeated UNLV, 90-80, in their first meeting on Feb. 1 at the Thomas & Mack. A win tonight would give the Cowboys their 20th win (19 against Division I teams).

UNLV would not only gain a much-needed split with the Cowboys with a victory tonight, but the Rebels also would leapfrog Wyoming into third place in the MWC standings with only a home game against San Diego State (15-10, 6-6) on Saturday afternoon remaining.

"This time of year they're all must wins," Wyoming coach Steve McClain said Sunday. "Vegas, we were lucky. We went in there and beat them early. They're playing as well as anybody right now.

"We come into this game knowing that it's a must."

UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour agrees.

"They're all big games now," Spoonhour said. "We came into these last three games (including Saturday's 73-67 win at Colorado State) wanting to do as well as we could. We've done the start of what we've needed to do. We've still got 80 minutes of ball left. But I'm only worried about (Wyoming) right now."

Spoonhour said he won't talk to his team about what could be riding on a victory.

"We don't have to," he said. "You've got guys here who have been through this same type of situation in high school, junior college and college. Everybody pretty well understands what the ramifications are.

"The main thing is sometimes you get guys who are trying to place too much emphasis on this particular game. We've got a lot of basketball after this. So you can't get overly 'geeked' about just one game."

Still, if UNLV were to win tonight it would be back on track to hit the 20-win mark before the MWC tournament. But Spoonhour said 19 wins wouldn't be bad, either.

"I think you get to 19 wins and have less than 10 defeats, that's always important," he said. "Sometimes you have a lot of wins but you've played a lot of exempt (preseason tournament) games, so your plus side doesn't look as good because you also have double-digit losses. If you can avoid double-digit losses and hang up 19 wins, that speaks pretty well for you."

A win tonight would guarantee no worse than that for the Rebels. Not so coincidentally, Wyoming picked up two of its wins in one of those exempt tournaments, the Great Alaska Shootout, against Alaska-Anchorage and Loyola Marymount. The Cowboys also lost to College of Charleston in Alaska.

Wyoming has dropped three of its past four games at the Arena-Auditorium, including a 86-73 setback to San Diego State Saturday afternoon.

McClain said he didn't feel his team tensed up with the chance to get back into the MWC title hunt. Wyoming guard Danta Richardson, who will be among four seniors honored before their final home game tonight, doesn't believe the Cowboys will experience a letdown following the disappointing home loss to the Aztecs.

"We still fell confident," Richardson said. "We haven't given our season away. If you start losing confidence now, you're going to be sitting home (during the postseason)."

REBELS NOTES: McClain said that scouts from 14 NBA teams will be at tonight's game to watch Banks and Wyoming center Uche Nsonwu-Amadi. "That tells you a little bit about (Banks)," McClain said. "They think he's a first-round pick." ... The Cowboys are 58-9 at home in McClain's five seasons, including 27-7 against conference foes. However, they're just 1-3 in their past four contests at the Arena-Auditorium. ... UNLV and San Diego State players shared the same hotel and even the same floor in snowy Fort Collins on Saturday night before the Rebels bused up to Laramie on Sunday afternoon. The good news is that everyone was on their best behavior.