‘Must-win’ season comes early for Rebels

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 | 9:43 a.m.

Mountain West Conference play is only two weeks old. Yet the members of the UNLV men's basketball team already find themselves uttering one of sports' most dreaded cliches heading into Saturday night's home game against Colorado State.

Yep, it's time to fire up those "must-win" quotes.

"From now on, we have to approach every game like that ... a must-win," senior forward Odartey Blankson said. "We have no other choice."

Lon Kruger's Rebels (7-7, 0-2), expected to challenge Utah (15-3, 3-0) for the conference title in the preseason, know they can't afford to dig a hole any deeper than the one in which they find themselves following back-to-back losses at Utah and at home to San Diego State.

"Being 0-2 in conference, we can't afford any more losses," Blankson said. "We've got to come out and play hard and hopefully get a win."

Added senior guard Romel Beck: "Oh yeah, this is a must win for us. It's very tough playing on the road in this conference. We have to defend our home floor and make a statement."

The Rebels already blew one home game last week when they lost to San Diego State, 81-73. This weekend's opponents, Colorado State (9-7, 1-2) and Wyoming (9-7, 1-2), tied for last place in the MWC a year ago and are a combined 1-10 in road games this season. The Rams, in fact, have lost 14 consecutive games away from Moby Arena.

With five of their next seven conference games on the road after Monday night's game against the Cowboys, the Rebels can ill afford another San Diego State-type slip.

"We're struggling and we need to win this game," senior forward Andy Hannan said. "We really have to dig and grind and get a win."

Beck said: "We're frustrated but we can't afford to be frustrated. Things are going to happen. We just have to learn and overcome them.

"For us seniors, it's our last year. We want to go out with a bang. We don't want to go to the Mountain West Tournament knowing we have to win it to get into the (NCAA) tournament. It's too early in the season for that now. We've got too many games left. I think we've still got a lot of time to turn it around."