Despite season-ending loss, Rebels remain upbeat

Steve Guiremand

Monday, March 8, 2004 | 10:19 a.m.

UNLV players were obviously disappointed immediately following Saturday afternoon's emotional 89-88 loss to BYU at the Thomas & Mack Center. But they were hardly discouraged.

"Everybody wants to win," senior Demetrius Hunter said following what most likely was his final game at the Thomas & Mack Center. "We wanted to win this game no matter if it counted or not. We wanted to win."

The good news was that the loss to the red-hot Cougars (20-7, 10-4), the unanimous preseason choice to win the conference title, didn't have any bearing on the Rebels' seeding for the Mountain West Conference tournament that starts on Thursday at the Pepsi Center in Denver. The winner of that tournament gets the MWC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

UNLV (16-11, 7-7) goes in as the fourth seed and will play fifth-seeded New Mexico (14-13, 5-9) at 9 p.m. on ESPN. The winner than plays the Air Force-Colorado State winner in one of Friday's semifinals.

"As soon as we got in (the locker room) guys were feeling bad, and you're supposed to feel bad," interim head coach Jay Spoonhour said. "But they just kind of looked around and then O-dot (junior forward Odartey Blankson) said, 'Hey, all we have to do is go and win the tournament now.' And a couple of guys nodded. A couple of guys clapped. And that was it. That's the kind of attitude you have to have."

"This game doesn't make or break us," said Blankson, who recorded his conference-high 18th double-double against the Cougars with 23 points and 10 rebounds. "We weren't going to get an at-large (NCAA tournament) bid anyway."

"We knew we had to win (the Mountain West tournament) anyway," point guard Jerel Blassingame added. "We still wanted to come out and play. (We're) playing good right now. We're trying to keep it going. ... If we play well up there, we know we can beat anybody."

That's because the Cougars and Rebels are in opposite brackets in the MWC tournament and would only meet again if both reached the championship game.

"Yeah, that's what they were telling us," Blassingame said. "They were saying hopefully we see them in the finals. And that's what we hope, too."

"I'd love to play them again because if we play them it means we're in the finals, right?" Spoonhour said. "So I'd love to play them. I'd love to play anybody on the third night."

Most coaches believe it's difficult to beat any team three times in the same season, especially one that has more than held its own in both of the previous matchups. UNLV also scored an 89-80 win against New Mexico on Jan. 31 at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Lobos, who lost their 27th consecutive game away from The Pit (road and neutral courts) on Saturday at Colorado State, 74-66, figure to have a huge edge in fan support on Thursday night. Not only is Denver an easy seven-hour drive up I-25 from Albuquerque but a lot of New Mexico boosters are expected to travel to support Don Flanagan's first-place Lady Lobos in the women's tournament, which starts Wednesday.

"It's going to be hard to just win any game," Spoonhour said when asked about the difficulty of beating the same team three consecutive times. "The games we've had with New Mexico have all been very competitive. But no matter who you play in this league, you have to play well to win."

The Lobos (14-13), like the Rebels, have extra motivation to do well in the tournament. Because two of their wins came against Division II teams, they have to at least get to Saturday's title game to finish .500 against NCAA Division I competition, a criterion that must be met before New Mexico can even be eligible to participate in the National Invitation Tournament.

Although game officials assessed Araujo a technical foul for "pushing" Blassingame in Saturday's loss, UNLV officials were expected to forward video of the incident to Mountain West Conference officials and claim that Araujo, a 6-foot-11, 285-pounder, had punched Blassingame, who is 5-foot-9, 170 pounds, in a second-half scrum under the Cougars' basket.

Araujo stayed in the game and scored the game-winning basket with .5 seconds left.

Blassingame said he was knocked out briefly after Araujo's right-hand appears to catch him above the eye.

"The crowd made it out like I hit the kid at the time," Araujo said. "I don't think I did that. I don't mean to do that. He's a great player and I respect him. The replays showed I didn't do that."

Game officials seemed to agree with Araujo after watching courtside replays. If he had been ejected for fighting, he would have had to sit out Thursday's first-round tournament game against Wyoming.

"All I know is I tried to strip the ball away from him and got hit in the face," Blassingame said. "I was knocked out for a minute. ... He apologized and that's what counts."

A Mountain West Conference official on Sunday said he didn't expect anything further to come from the matter.

Aruajo, a noted weight room fanatic and a likely first round NBA pick, bench presses over 500 pounds.