Blassingame running the Rebels

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, March 11, 2004 | 9:51 a.m.

UNLV junior point guard Jerel Blassingame averaged 9.5 points and 5.8 assists in his first 21 games as a Rebel. Here's what he's done in the six games since interim head coach Jay Spoonhour took over and opened up the offense:

DENVER --- Nobody had bigger shoes to fill in the Mountain West Conference this year than UNLV's Jerel Blassingame.

A 5-foot-9 junior from Los Angeles City College, Blassingame took over the point guard duties that had been handled by Marcus Banks, who averaged 20.3 points per game as a senior and was an NBA lottery pick.

And although he hasn't quite shown the scoring ability of Banks yet, it can be argued that Blassingame has been just as dominating a point guard in the MWC the second half of the season.

Consider:

Still, one wonders what the statistics would have shown had Blassingame played all 14 MWC games in the up-tempo style that Jay Spoonhour implemented instead of just the final six games. Blassingame has almost as many assists (63) in those last six games as Banks (73) had in 14 MWC contests as a senior.

"We want to get out and run now and Jerel does a good job of finding people," senior guard Demetrius Hunter said. "You can't really compare the two. Jerel is a great player and Marcus is a great player, but they're two different styles of players. Marcus was a more gifted one-on-one player. Jerel is doing a great job of finding people. I mean, he's averaging almost 11 assists per game lately. That says a lot, man."

"He's the general of our team," forward Odartey Blankson said. "He has been a big part of our success. He's got so much speed and so much quickness. He knows how to get guys open shots."

Blassingame gives a lot of the credit for his recent productivity surge to Jay Spoonhour.

"I like playing up-tempo," he said. "It's playing right into what I like to do. Give credit for that to Coach Jay. He's allowed me to go out there and play and not worry about making mistakes."

"He's getting us easy field goals and that's what we're after," Spoonhour said. "He gets guys the ball where they can score, and that's an important thing. A lot of offensive possessions that may not look very good at times he finds a ways to bail us out and gets us an open shot."

Adds Blassingame: "That's why I got recruited here for, to do what I'm doing now. I just hope I can get us to the NCAA tournament now."

That road starts tonight with a first-round Mountain West tournament game against New Mexico (14-13), a team Blassingame sliced-and-diced for 14 points and 13 assists while leading UNLV to a 78-75 victory just 10 days ago at The Pit.

Blassingame will find himself matched up defensively most of the night against Lobos point guard Javin Tindall, who averaged 22.0 points against the Rebels in two regular-season meetings.

"Tindall is a heckuva player," Blassingame said. "Out of all the guards I've played against this year he's been one of the toughest I've faced. I know I'm going to have my work cut out for me."

Spoonhour says it will take more than just Blassingame to contain Tindall tonight.

"It doesn't just fall on (Blassingame)," Spoonhour said. "They're going to set a lot of ball screens for (Tindall) and do a lot of things to get him open. And everybody is going to have to step up and help out on different plays. It's not like the NBA where it's one guy on one guy. It's going to take a team defensive effort."