Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004 | 9:54 a.m.
The UNLV Rebels find themselves in a familar position after Monday night's Mountain West Conference opener with Utah. ... looking up in the standings.
For the third consecutive year the Rebels dropped their conference opener, this time a 72-67 decision to the defending regular-season co-champion Utes before a crowd of 12,191 at noisy Thomas & Mack Center.
It was a case of too much Nick Jacobson and not enough rebounding or free throw shooting for the Rebels (9-4, 0-1), who rallied from a 10-point second half deficit to twice tie the game in the final three minutes only to come up short down the stretch.
Jacobson, a 6-foot-3 senior guard, scored a game-high 27 points and was 8-for-8 from the free throw line, including two free throws that broke a 65-65 tie with 1:48 to go, and two with 9.3 seconds left to seal the win for the Utes (13-3, 1-0).
"Nick Jacobson got off to such a great start, and once he gets rolling you've got real problems," UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour said.
Rebels point guard Jerel Blassingame, who helped fuel UNLV's second-half comeback with 17 points, six assists and two steals, missed a 3-pointer with 14 seconds remaining that would have made it 70-70. He also missed two big free throws down the stretch with the Rebels down 67-65.
"It was a good shot," Blassingame said of 3-pointer, which was on line but hit the back of the rim and bounced back out. "I thought it was going to go down when it left my hand. Coach told me I should have taken it to the hole, but I thought I had a good chance."
Blassingame seemed more bothered by the two free throws he missed with 1:34 to go and UNLV trailing by just two points, 67-65. He was just 7-of-12 from the foul line for the contest.
"I had a chance to tie the game," he said. "The game was in my hands. If I would have made those free throws, we would have won. But I didn't make those shots."
Still, there was plenty of blame to go around for the Rebels.
"We had some open shots but we just didn't knock them down," Spoonhour said.
"Sometimes they go in, and sometimes they don't," added guard Romel Beck, who made just one of his six 3-point attempts. "Tonight they didn't go in."
Still, there were some positives to come out of the loss for the Rebels.
Midway through the second half when Utah built a nine-point lead thanks in part to a Jacobson 3-pointer, the Rebels didn't fold and kept chipping away at the lead before finally tying the game, 63-63, with 2:59 left when Blassingame made one of two free throws.
"We never stopped playing," senior forward Odartey Blankson said. "They kept a nice little lead on us. They did a good job of executing their plays which made it tough to get over the hump."
"I was really proud of our effort, and I thought our crowd was just excellent," Spoonhour said. "When we were trying to come back, that was the most enthusiasm that I can remember here for a conference game. That was really, really good. It's just a shame that we lost the game and we have two weeks before we come home to play another game."
The Rebels play their next three games on the road starting Saturday afternoon at San Diego State.
Then it's off to the chilly Front Range for games at Wyoming and Colorado State before returning to the Thomas & Mack on Jan. 31 to play much-improved New Mexico.
"We can't let this one loss get to us," Beck said. "There's still 13 games left and anything can happen. We've got to put this one behind us and move on and get ready for San Diego State now."
"When you lose a game to anybody, it's hard," Spoonhour said. "But this is less than one-tenth of our conference schedule.
"There's going to be some hard games to play. The thing you've got to do is learn from your mistakes and move on."
Senior guard Demetrius Hunter, who drew the difficult defensive assignment of trying to guard Jacobson much of the game, attempted just one field goal in 29 minutes of action and finished with zero points and one assist. ... The Rebels did a nice job defensively on 6-foot-10 freshman forward Andrew Bogut, holding him to just eight points and five rebounds in 29 minutes before he fouled out. "He was the focal point of our defense," Blankson said. "We wanted to make sure we limited his touches on offense." ... Utah center Tim Frost, listed as doubtful for the game for the past week with a back injury, started and scored 14 points in 27 minutes.
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