Rebels have no defense for 0-2 start

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Jan. 17, 2005 | 8:37 a.m.

Dazed and confused.

That pretty much summed up the mood in the UNLV locker room after the Rebels, the preseason pick to win the Mountain West Conference, dropped to 0-2 with a surprising 81-73 loss to San Diego State (8-7, 2-0) on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"I'm speechless," senior guard Romel Beck said.

"There's a lot of anger in (the locker room) right now," added sophomore guard Michael Umeh, who scored a team-high 18 points and grabbed six rebounds in 29 minutes off the bench. "It was just a bad, bad game overall. We didn't show a lot of poise out there, and there were too many defensive slipups."

You think?

Although new UNLV head coach Lon Kruger spends the bulk of his practices extolling the virtues of communicating on defense, the Rebels (7-7) repeatedly looked lost at that end of the court, especially when it came to guarding Brandon Heath, San Diego State's explosive sophomore guard.

Heath, 6-foot-2, who held a four-inch height advantage over Rebels point guard Jerel Blassingame, continually drove past Blassingame for easy baskets en route to a career-high 37 points. But it was hardly just Blassingame's to blame, as UNLV's post defenders failed to provide any help once he got close to the hoop.

"Heath had his way with us, especially in the second half (when he scored 23 points)," Kruger said. "We obviously weren't getting there to provide the help and let him get all the way to the goal way too many times."

Offensively, the Rebels once again played well in spurts, especially at the start of the second half when forward Louis Amundson scored four quick baskets as UNLV made a concentrated effort to work the ball inside. But after the Aztecs stretched their lead to 12 points at 57-45 on a pair of Heath free throws with 12 minutes to go, the Rebels seemed to revert to their old ways and began settling for quick jump shots.

That strategy worked for a while as UNLV closed to 59-58 on a 3-pointer by Beck and a steal and layup by Blassingame. But the Rebels couldn't keep up after that as Heath repeatedly drove to the basket for easy baskets down the stretch.

"We're kind of searching for an indentity offensively," Kruger said. "We need to get the ball in the paint more. I thought when we did attack the rim and made aggressive plays, good things happened. ... We've got to make a greater effort to get the ball inside, whether it's off the pass or the dribble."

Beck, asked about the Rebels' sputtering offense, said: "It's everybody. We try to win the game by ourselves instead of trying to win as a team. We haven't learned from it yet. It's been happening all year."

Umeh added: "We're playing in spurts too many times. We've got to show a lot more poise and get (better) possessions. We don't do that for 40 minutes."

Kruger was asked about his team's 0-2 start in MWC action.

"I'm more worried about our play," he said. "We've got to play better. Regardless of the record, the play is a much bigger concern than our standing in the league. It's still very early, but it doesn't matter if we don't make progress very quickly."

Umeh said of the poor start: "It is shocking. I still feel like there is still a lot of season left. I'm never going to give up on the season. We're going to lock in there and we're going to have a good week of practice and we're going to solve this problem."

After all, as Beck correctly pointed out, there isn't really much of an alternative.

"We've got no choice but to go back and see the film and, hopefully, get it together," Beck said.