Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Ron Kantowski sees a scary road ahead for the Rebels in the NCAA Tournament

Having done its job and then some to ... well, choose whatever tired cliche about "going dancing" you prefer because this year I plan to honor the moratorium on using them ... all UNLV was looking for was a Selection Sunday Kind of Love. A love to last past Saturday night's emotional 78-70 victory against Brigham Young in the Mountain West Championship Game.

They didn't get it.

The 28-6 Rebels will begin the NCAA tournament as a No. 7 seed. They will play 20-11 Georgia Tech of the blue blood Atlantic Coast Conference, a No. 10 seed, in the first round of the Midwest region Friday in Chicago.

Should UNLV win - and it won't be easy - it would be matched against the winner of the game pitting No. 2 seed Wisconsin against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a 15 seed. That would practically be a home game for the Badgers, one of the best teams in the land.

Somehow, if you listen to the bracketologists, UNLV tumbled from a No. 4 seed to a No. 7 by closing the season with seven consecutive victories and running the table at the conference tournament by an average of more than 16 points a game.

Neither NCAA tournament selection chairman Cheech Marin nor his assistant, Tommy Chong, could be reached for comment. But it would appear somebody sequestered in the room was smoking something when it came time to place UNLV in the bracket.

"Based on the things I said (Saturday), 'surprised' is a good way to put it," said UNLV coach Lon Kruger, who had hoped the Rebels might be seeded as high as third after their strong finishing kick.

Instead, the Rebels got kicked to the curb. Based on BYU's No. 8 seed in the South, it would appear all the Rebels and Cougars were playing for was diddly (a No. 7 seed) and squat (a No. 8) on Saturday.

"I thought our strength of schedule was good, we won road games, our last 10 all the factors seemed to be lining up pretty well," Kruger said. "Apparently, there was something in there missing."

Like an ounce of common sense, for instance?

Maybe this is more of an indictment of the Mountain West than the Rebels' resume. The conference has never had one of its pretenders seeded higher than sixth.

But UNLV looked like a lock to raise the bar, part of the reason it invited those who attended the team's award banquet at Cox Pavilion and the CBS cameras inside to watch the selection show. The UNLV gathering was one of nine depicted in Hollywood Squares style, positioned just to the right of the center square.

That was where they tried to hide Wayland Flowers and Madame while contestants kept selecting Charley Weaver to block, which should have foretold something.

There were cheers when UNLV flashed on the screen with a No. 7 beside its name but these were from the same people who would have cheered if they put "Phoenix Suns" or "Harlem Globetrotters" on the line under UNLV's.

While Georgia Tech is neither of those, it's not exactly the Washington Generals, either. Or Penn of the Ivy League, which is who most of the experts had the Rebels playing in their opener.

You could tell from the looks on the players' faces that they weren't particularly thrilled with the assignment.

While some tried to put on a happy face, others wore an expression that said "dog dying" or "physics final."

"People say it's a disappointment," said Wendell White, the Rebels' small forward who plays like a big one. "I feel like it's a challenge for us. We've been going through it the whole season so this is another challenge we have to overcome. We're gonna fight."

This isn't the Bill Bayno Era - did I just refer to Bayno's tenure here as an era? - where the Rebels would parlay their massive home court advantage in the conference tournament into a double-digit slot in the bracket. Then they would promptly get schooled by an Ivy League school or ... heck, who even remembers what conference Tulsa was in when it crushed UNLV like a cigarette butt the last time the Rebels made it this far?

That's what makes this slap in the face sting even more.

While this doesn't have to be one and done, this easily could have been two and who knows how many more with a decent draw. ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb still has the Rebels in his elite eight, despite the tough row to hoe, and CBS's Seth Davis called UNLV this year's George Mason.

Which, I suppose, is a whole lot better than being this year's Syracuse.

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