Rebels prepare for twinbill with SDSU

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

UNLV and San Diego State's basketball teams shared the same wing of rooms Saturday night at the Fort Collins, Colo., Marriott.

Players chatted in the hallways and even broke bread together at the Sunday morning breakfast buffet before the Rebels checked out for their afternoon bus trip to Laramie, Wyo. Barring a couple of monumental upsets by Colorado State this weekend in Utah, the teams will probably be seeing a whole lot more of each other in the coming week.

Charlie Spoonhour's Rebels (18-9, 7-6) and Steve Fisher's Aztecs (15-11, 6-7) conclude the regular season Saturday afternoon at the Thomas & Mack Center. The teams will likely meet again in the No. 4 vs. No. 5 first-round Mountain West Conference tournament matchup at 9 p.m. Thursday on ESPN.

The only way the teams won't meet again on Thursday night is if Colorado State (15-12, 4-8), which swept the season series with the Aztecs, should defeat first-place Utah (22-5, 10-2) and second-place BYU (20-7, 9-3) on the road this weekend and San Diego State fall to the Rebels Saturday. The Rams would then finish in a fifth-place tie with the Aztecs but would get the higher seed by virtue of their head-to-head series sweep against San Diego State.

What are the odds of that happening? Slightly less than making the winning pull on Megabucks. The Rams are a dreadful 1-8 on the road this year and Utah and BYU are a combined 25-1 at home.

With UNLV likely needing to win the MWC tournament to earn an NCAA tournament bid, Spoonhour was asked if would hold back a few things for next Thursday night's likely quarterfinal matchup.

"Nah," he said. "You just go out and play to win. It's the last regular season game at home for the seniors, so it means a lot. So you just play the game and if we do play San Diego State again next week, you come back and prepare to try to win again."

This is the second consecutive year the Rebels have been in this situation. Last year UNLV defeated New Mexico, 91-82, at the Thomas & Mack Center and then came back to defeat the Lobos in a wild 120-117 two overtime thriller on the first night of the MWC tournament.

"It's not what you would prefer, but you can't do anything about it," Spoonhour said. "I'd like to have the same results, though.

"It honestly really doesn't matter when you get down to it. You just have to go out and play. To win the tournament you have to win three games in three nights, so the odds are you're going to play somebody you just played the week before."

MWC men's standings

Tonight's games

Wyoming at BYU, 6 p.m.

Colorado State at Utah, 6 p.m.

Saturday's games

Wyoming at Utah, Noon

San Diego State at UNLV, 3p.m.

New Mexico at Air Force, 3 p.m.

Colorado State at BYU, 6 p.m.

March 13-15

MWC Tournament at UNLV