Seniors bid farewell on big stage vs. Lobos

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

UNLV's five senior players take the floor at the Thomas & Mack Center for their final Mountain West Conference home game tonight.

Odartey Blankson, Jerel Blassingame, Romel Beck, Andy Hannan and Colin Darfour probably couldn't ask for a better stage for their farewells.

The Rebels (14-11, 6-6), who extended their season-best winning streak to five games with a 63-57 come-from-behind win against Air Force on Saturday, host red-hot New Mexico (21-6, 8-4) in what will likely be the final Big Monday appearance on ESPN for Mountain West Conference schools.

The MWC, which moves to the new College Sports Television (CSTV) starting with the 2006-07 season, is expected to move three games originally slated for ESPN's Big Monday next season to midweek contests on ESPN2 to avoid starting any more games at 10 p.m. in the Mountain time zone and 9 p.m. in the Pacific.

"We're going to be pretty fired up," Hannan said. "There's a lot of things going on. It's Senior Night. It's the last Big Monday game probably. And the way New Mexico is playing now makes it big."

Ritchie McKay's Lobos are arguably the hottest team in the conference right now, having won seven of their past eight games, including a 65-54 upset of then 12th-ranked Utah last Monday in Albuquerque. That victory snapped the Utes' 18-game winning streak.

"New Mexico is playing great," Rebels coach Lon Kruger said. "They probably are as competent and playing with as much energy and conviction right now as they have all year. We have a lot of respect for what they're doing. We know we're going to have to make progress and continue to get better (to beat them)."

The Rebels seemed to take another step in that direction Saturday night when they used an 18-2 spurt in the second half to erase a nine-point deficit and pull out the win against the Falcons.

Sophomore guard Michael Umeh weaved his way through Air Force defenders for nine of his 15 points during the streak, while senior guard Romel Beck finished with 20 points and a game-high 10 rebounds for the first double-double of his career.

Beck, who until last week had never grabbed more than five rebounds in a game during his career as a Rebel, has pulled down a total of 17 rebounds in his last two games.

"It feels good," said Beck, who hit double-digits in rebounds when he snatched an Antoine Hood 3-point miss with 3.9 seconds left. "That's one area of my game that I really wanted to work on is rebounding. (Kruger) has been preaching that all year. This is something I'll always remember, my first double-double."

Although he lost his starting job to Umeh when he went down with a sprained foot that forced him to miss three games in early February, Beck said he's happy with his role.

"To me it doesn't matter if I come off the bench or start," he said. "The main thing is to be out there to finish the game."

And to finish his senior season on a high note.

"I don't want to hang up my sneakers yet," Beck said. "I want to get to the (NCAA) tournament and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there."