Friday, March 11, 2005 | 10:08 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
DENVER -- How far did Wyoming and UNLV set back basketball as you, me, our fathers and even our grandfathers know it during Thursday afternoon's Mountain West Conference tournament quarterfinal?
Let's just say that for a while it appeared the first game of the evening session was going to be delayed, because the maintenance crew at the Pepsi Center was having trouble removing the peach baskets from the wall of the barn so the rims could be reattached.
It was a train wreck of a basketball game, a demolition derby in which the Cowboys and Rebels circled around the court in backward circles, occasionally slamming into each other when it was called for -- or even when it wasn't -- until only one was still running.
Of course, that's the whole idea for No. 4 and No. 5 seeds at this time of the year, so Lon Kruger was still smiling when he climbed out of his battered Rambler to meet the press following the Rebels' less-than-artistic 70-63 victory.
He agreed it wasn't exactly like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. "Dogs Playing Poker" on velvet is more like it. I've seen crayon drawings on refrigerators that were masterpieces compared to this one.
"Well, especially there in the last quarter of the game when it got very disjointed, all the fouls, all the little runs," the UNLV coach said of a game that was as bizarre as it was ragged.
During one stretch, the teams combined to miss seven consecutive free throws. No wonder nobody was surprised when one of the Wyoming cheerleaders tripped and fell while running onto the court for the second half, nearly taking out half of the imposters seated at the non-working press table.
"We'd get to nine (point lead) and then they'd cut it back to 5, 6, and we couldn't quite get away from them, and again, you don't expect them to stop fighting and they didn't," Kruger said. "Very tough to finish that game."
Very tough to watch it, too, coach.
The hero of the game was UNLV's Ricky Morgan, mostly because of something he did when the clock wasn't running. Just a 60-percent free-throw shooter coming in, Morgan missed his first charity toss and then made 18 in a row, so at least he won't have to run extra wind sprints at practice. But to be honest, it was about as interesting to watch as an intentional walk.
A lot of games have been lost on missed free throws, and this could have been another one, but when was the last time a free throw made ESPN's Plays of the Day?
The Rebels made 23-of-29 free throws for the game. And the second half. They did not attempt a free throw in the first half.
I told you it was a strange one.
Michael Umeh, who is starting to look more and more like Marcus Banks right down to the jersey number -- with the exception that he doesn't turn the ball over and is also a nice guy -- scored UNLV's first 14 points and had 20 by halftime. By the end of the game, he had 21. Not so much because Wyoming did anything special to stop him, but just because it was such a weird game.
How weird was it? Odartey Blankson, who was playing so well down the stretch that the NBA scouts that came to watch Utah's Andrew Bogut hoop it up against Colorado State in the first game stayed around just to see what all those 23-point, 8-rebound games in February were all about, made a grand total of one basket. He was 1-for-10 from the field in 34 minutes and finished with just five points.
Before the season started, UNLV would have had trouble beating the Washington Generals' junior varsity without Blankson and fellow seniors Jerel Blassingame and Romel Beck at their best. Against Wyoming, the three combined for 12 points on 3-of-24 shooting. But at least Blassingame kept getting in Jay Straight's way, drawing a couple of charges -- his first two of the season? -- in the first half that seemed to discourage the brash Cowboys star.
This was a guy who just last Saturday after a loss to Air Force in the regular-season finale prefaced a tirade against the insurance salesmen who masquerade as Mountain West officials by crowing "Ain't none of them can guard me," about his opponents.
That was some Straight talking. But not shooting. He made only 5-of-18 shots against the Rebels and was just 2 of 12 in the first half when he shot Wyoming into a 28-21 hole.
Apparently, some of them guys with "UNLV" written on their shirts can still guard him, although Straight stopped short of admitting it, indirectly blaming his off night on his buddies in the striped shirts.
"I couldn't determine, you know, which way the guys were going to call the game -- but they did a great job of calling it," said Straight, a first team all-MWC selection who never met a shot he didn't take. "I couldn't determine whether or not they were going to call if you touch a guy or give them contact. I was kind of indecisive about that."
Then he answered three more questions about Wyoming's NIT chances.
The Rebels won't have to deal with that until at least tonight. If they stutter and sputter on offense like they did against Wyoming and Blankson doesn't show up, it will be like throwing boomerangs in a barrel, or whatever 7-foot tall future lottery picks from Australia do to pass the time.
But you never know about these Rebels. With a 10-3 record, they are the winningest team in the Mountain West's short tournament history, and they neutralized Bogut for much of the game at the Thomas & Mack Center, holding the nation's leading rebounder without one until there were just 12 minutes to play.
Bogut finished with 14 points and four rebounds in the Utes' 57-53 victory and that was mostly with Louis Amundson guarding him. With Joel Anthony getting most of the minutes in the middle now -- 24 to Amundson's 16 against Wyoming -- the Rebels are even more formidable on defense. Anthony had eight rebounds and was credited with three blocked shots which leads me to believe the stat crew had a bad game, too, because I counted at least five.
Still, it's hard to imagine the Rebels beating the Utes the way they shot the ball against Wyoming. They made just 20 of 59 field-goal attempts against a team that usually plays defense like a sailor on leave, and they can't expect Ricky Morgan to shoot free throws like Calvin Murphy every night.
But if they can play Utah tough, they'll probably wind up getting an NIT home game. That wouldn't exactly be a booby prize for this mercurial team, given how poorly it was playing a month ago.
So let's put the ol' beach basket back up on the wall and see if the Rebels can throw a couple of more in.
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