Columnist Ron Kantowski: Rebels feast on cupcakes over holidays

Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

As long as there are bubble teams, tournament selection committees and multiyear coaching contracts, there will always be a need to win 20 college basketball games. Thus, there will always be games like UNLV vs. Gardner-Webb, UNLV vs. Florida Atlantic, UNLV vs. Texas-Pan American and UNLV vs. Fort Courage -- er, Lewis.

Too bad for the Rebels -- or at least for their fans, who also can read what's written on the other guys' shirts and tend to base their participation on such -- they couldn't take a cue from Big George Foreman and get them all out of the way on the same day.

Long before the Lean, Mean Grillin' Machine was paying his bills, Foreman beat up on five tomato cans on one afternoon during a boxing exhibition in Canada. After enduring the first round of the Mountain West-Atlantic Sun Challenge at the sparsely populated Thomas & Mack Center on Tuesday night, that doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

If there was such a thing as the Mountain West-Atlantic Sun Challenge, it would be a made-for-radio event. After downing Gardner-Webb 80-65 Tuesday, the Rebels will most likely take out some additional frustration against another A-Sun member tonight, the Florida Atlantics -- make that the Florida Atlantic Owls -- coached by former UNLV great Sidney Green.

Actually, if the Rebels are frustrated by their 4-4 record, they are doing a good job of disguising it.

In fact, coach Lon Kruger, who by now must lead the nation in unflappability, said UNLV is probably right where it should be, the unrealistic expectations of its fans notwithstanding.

"We've played seven games," he said, forgetting about Gardner-Webb, or perhaps not counting it like the rest of us. "Six of 'em (opponents) were about like us and Oklahoma State was better. We split with the others and if we played better, we would have had a chance to win a couple more."

They'll have a chance to win a bunch more in the next couple of weeks with only a game at Texas the day after New Year's getting in the way of all those aforementioned Hunts and Contadinas. But give Gardner-Webb credit for at least making the Rebels get their funky silver-gray uniforms a little damp with perspiration.

The Runnin' Bulldogs -- as hard is that is to visualize -- played the original Bulldogs, the ones from Georgia, to a five-point defeat a couple of weeks ago and beat East Carolina by 30, just another reason why UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick was so eager to get out of Greenville.

Gardner-Webb had an interesting strategy against the Rebels: Take every shot from 3-point range and see how many go in. For a while it worked, as the Bulldogs took a 9-0 lead and trailed just 41-37 at halftime. Somewhere, John Drew was cheering.

The visitors didn't score their first old-school basket until there was only 5:37 to play in the first half. By then, they already had eight 3-pointers on the way to a 9-of-18 performance from long distance in the first half. But at halftime, the Rebels figured out there's nothing in the rules that prevents a team from setting up its defense on that funny-looking arc that is painted on the court.

"The guys took it upon themselves to get up on them a little more and take away some of those good looks they were getting," Kruger said about a halftime adjustment that few expected the Rebels would have to make.

The bigger adjustment happened before the game, when Odartey Blankson was moved back to power forward where he looks much more comfortable than at small forward, even if he doesn't see it. Well, O-Dot, the rest of us do. With Oklahoma State's defensive-minded Graham twins beating up on Northwestern Oklahoma 92-35 Tuesday in Stillwater where they couldn't hassle him, Blankson finished with 30 points and 11 rebounds two just nights after looking lost on the perimeter against No. 3 OSU.

Otherwise, folks, what else can I tell ya'? They set up a tomato can in front of the Rebels and the Rebels knocked it over.

Get used to it for a little while.