Columnist Dean Juipe: Rams won this horrendous game by default

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004 | 9:58 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

If anyone from Texas Christian University was watching UNLV's Monday night basketball game at Colorado State, he undoubtedly was plagued by conflicting thoughts.

On one hand, the Mountain West Conference's imminently newest member could say to itself, "Here's a league that looks so mediocre, we might do well."

Or, conversely, it could collectively ask itself a simple question: "Why do we want to leave a decent basketball league -- Conference USA -- to play with these guys?"

Well, the Horned Frogs will have to figure that one out for themselves, but this much is known about the Mountain West: If UNLV and Colorado State are representative of the quality of basketball in the league -- and they are -- the conference is leaving a good deal to be desired.

The Rebels, coming off a Saturday game at Wyoming in which the Cowboys looked darn tootin' awful and allowed UNLV to win by 14, produced a curious but less-than-golden nugget themselves in losing in overtime by six points, 89-83, to a CSU team that was hobbled by both injury and by repeatedly shooting itself in the foot.

It was a lousy, three-hour game in which mistakes of all types were spread just seconds apart.

Suspense? Yeah, there was some thanks to the Rams not being able to protect the ball or make any free throws.

But solid, interesting play? Not a chance.

For UNLV, it may not have been a dreadful performance but it was ugly enough through the game's first 33 minutes to give the matter some thought. For the bulk of the game the Rebels had a three-prone attack: they were prone to fouls, prone to missing shots and prone to throwing the ball away.

Texas Christian, a mere 6-10 in Conference USA and well behind that league's leaders (Louisville and Cincinnati), should, at worse, fit right in if and when it joins the Mountain West next year.

The Rebels may have split a two-game trip to the Range but they've hardly righted themselves, sitting at 1-3 in league play and 10-6 overall. They missed a great opportunity to steal a win at Fort Collins, with James Peters clanging a free throw with two seconds to play in regulation that would have allowed the Rebels to escape with a one-point victory.

Hard to believe they had been 17 points behind only seven minutes earlier and in danger of seeing their world record streak of 554 consecutive games with at least one successful 3-point field goal come to an end.

UNLV caught up because it finally hit a couple of those 3's and CSU's 7-foot center, Matt Nelson, reinjured his left knee with just under seven minutes to play and his team ahead by 16. His absence down the stretch -- along with the Rams' almost psychotic attempts at winning the game at the foul line -- permitted UNLV to claw back into contention.

Aided by Lou Amundson's spirited play and 15 points off the bench, the Rebels overcame the repeated loss of a starter -- or two, or three or four -- to fouls to make a run at a CSU team that was playing scared with Nelson on the bench. One by one, UNLV players were fouling out without the team suffering on the scoreboard -- simply because Amundson was holding the Rebels close and the Rams were shooting free throws as if they were blindfolded.

They say altitude is a factor in games on the high prairie, yet attitude came into play in this one. Both teams wanted to win but neither could suck up the moxie to pull it off.

Colorado State all but won by default, with UNLV barely able to field a team by the game's end. It was not a pretty sight.

If they saw any of it down in Fort Worth, they had to wonder what they're getting themselves into.