Seniors hope to end with a bang

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 9:50 a.m.

J.K. Edwards said it would be poetic for this chaotic UNLV basketball season to end in the NCAA tournament, while James Peters would welcome a second consecutive start this weekend.

Demetrius Hunter, the third of the three senior Rebels who will be playing their final game at the Thomas & Mack Center against Brigham Young on Saturday afternoon, is simply proud of himself.

Foot problems have plagued Hunter, a former Cheyenne High standout, since he transferred to UNLV from Georgetown. Even though he pondered hanging up his high-tops, he persevered.

"Oh yeah, I'm no quitter," Hunter said after practice Wednesday. "Of course, when things get tough, you have thoughts of the easy way out. But I hung in there. My body is my body. I have to put it up with it, no matter what.

"I'm happy I hung in there. My career isn't ending the way I wanted it to, but I'm pretty sure God has bigger things in store for me."

Inconsistency and poor chemistry, according to junior forward Odartey Blankson, stung the Rebels this season. Even when they were 9-3, two of those losses were to Nevada-Reno and a shocker to Northern Arizona.

Then UNLV lost six of nine games, a stretch that included Blankson's blanket ripping of everything and everyone in the program after the loss to Utah in Salt Lake City.

After a loss at Missouri, coach Charlie Spoonhour resigned. He had been inked through next season, but a demanding doctor made him step aside, because of health reasons related to stress, before he could complete his third season.

Spoonhour's son, Jay, was named interim coach, and the Rebels have responded by winning four of five games. They are 16-10, including 7-6 in the Mountain West Conference, heading into Saturday's game against BYU (19-7, 9-4).

Practices at the Mack and on a Cox Pavilion auxiliary court have become much more spirited, with coaches and peripheral players not involved in specific drills clapping loudly to reward unselfishness and productivity.

Even when something hasn't gone to script, effort has been met with an enthusiastic response. That rah-rah reinforcement has helped produce the team's highest-scoring five-game scoring average (81 points) of the season.

"We slipped up early," Edwards said. "But we're coming on strong at the end. That's what you need, to play your best at the end. Hopefully, we can keep it going and clean up little things, and we'll be looking all right."

Edwards, a 6-foot-8, 250-pound center from Clemmons, N.C., averages 12.5 points, and he's shooting a league-best 61.5 percent from the field. Hunter, shooting a woeful 35.3 percent, has produced 7.2 points a game.

Peters, a Chicago native, started 14 times last season. Monday, in his first start of 2003-04, the 6-8 forward had 12 points and 6 rebounds in a victory at New Mexico.

Jay Spoonhour said he will consider starting all three seniors Saturday against the Cougars, although a hobbling Hunter has been more efficient lately as a reserve.

Hunter, a 6-2 shooting guard, said he couldn't predict how he will feel Saturday.

"I can't tell whether I'll cry, or how I'll react," he said. "It just seems like I've been doing this for a long time. The last two, three years have been especially long for me. I'm looking forward to it.

"At the same time, it's kind of, 'Whooooa,' my career might be over here (soon.) If it's over, basketball has been great to me. It was fun. If my career ends tomorrow, I have no regrets about anything."

What promises to be an entertaining and wide-open Mountain West tournament begins next Thursday in Denver. The victor gets an automatic berth in the NCAAs, in which UNLV has participated twice over the last 12 years.

"That's basically our whole goal, right there," Edwards said. "We know we have to win the (Mountain West) tournament to make it to the NCAAs, where we want to be. It would be a perfect ending."