Rebels rollin’ as Air Force rolls in

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 10:06 a.m.

"I'm embarrassed right now. I just feel sorry for our fans and anybody whoever wore a UNLV jersey."

-- UNLV forward Odartey Blankson after the Rebels lost at

Air Force, 64-48, on Jan. 31.

With a four-game winning streak, including three consecutive conference road victories, the UNLV men's basketball team is playing arguably its best basketball of the season right now.

But don't expect Lon Kruger's squad to get too big-headed over its recent success. Not with defending Mountain West Conference champion Air Force (16-10, 7-4) on deck on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Falcons are a sobering reminder of how bad things were for the Rebels just a month ago. UNLV's 64-48 loss at Air Force was easily the lowest point of the season for the Rebels (13-11, 5-6).

How bad was it?

The Falcons, behind guard Antoine Hood's four 3-pointers, went on a 21-3 run in the first half en route to a 39-18 lead. It didn't get any better after halftime as Air Force led by as many as 24 points and still won by 16 points despite pulling its starters midway through the second half.

"We just didn't show up mentally and physically for that game," senior swingman Andy Hannan said. "Probably more mentally than anything. I'd say that's the worst memory we have of the season."

The normally mild-mannered Kruger could be seen getting into the faces of several key players during first-half timeouts. But nothing seemed to work that night at Clune Arena.

"I think the Air Force loss was extremely disappointing to our guys because they jumped on us and we didn't respond," Kruger said. "We've had stretches of up and down play all year, but normally when we get down we bounce back and battle a little bit. In that game, we didn't.

"We obviously have to compete much harder for 40 minutes this time."

The Falcons bounced back from a 65-56 home loss to Utah to dismantle BYU, 70-39, on Monday night and are tied for second place in the Mountain West Conference with New Mexico, which visits UNLV on Monday night. The 31-point margin of victory was the largest ever for the Falcons in a conference game.

Air Force held BYU scoreless for the first 10 1/2 minutes of action in that game en route to a 19-0 lead. By halftime it was 37-13.

The Falcons once again lead the nation in scoring defense, allowing just 53.1 points per game. Air Force has led the country in that category in each of the previous two seasons.

"They showed us that we had a lot of weaknesses that needed some work," point guard Jerel Blassingame said. "But we're playing better now. That's what matters. We've just got to prepare for them and hopefully we'll have a great game against them."

"We're going to use that bad memory from the first game to build up some energy and momentum for this game," Hannan said. "This is a big weekend for us. We're playing two teams from the upper tier of our conference. Getting two more big wins would be great. These are very important games for us to stay on that roll heading into the conference tournament."