Ron Kantowski on a Rebel revival that won’t have UNLV fans comparing this group to the early ‘90s teams, but at least sparks memories of them

Sunday, March 18, 2007 | 7:24 a.m.

Chicago

At about half-past 11 this morning, five offensive tackles with "WISCONSIN" sewn on their school's basketball jerseys will slap palms with four little guys and Gaston Essengue with "UNLV" inscribed on theirs. Then a referee will toss the ball in the air and the biggest Rebels basketball game in 16 years will be under way.

Sixteen years. That's only four short of a score, which, come to think, pretty much describes the UNLV basketball program since the glory days of the early 1990s, when Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony and Anderson Hunt were so good that kids on every playground in every city in America wanted to emulate them by getting in your face like a drill sergeant with a toothache.

Four Short Of A Score. The Rollie Massimino (at UNLV) Story. Foreword by Dr. Bob Maxson. Postscripts by Bill Bayno and Charlie Spoonhour.

It would never sell.

It sure didn't sell here.

After Maxson, the former university president, ran Jerry Tarkanian out of town and Massimino did the same to the Rebels' few remaining fans with his boorish attitude and secret contract, Bayno did manage to put a few guys in the pros when the Rebels sneaked through the back door of the NCAA tournament twice.

But they were schooled so badly by Princeton and Tulsa that it almost would have been better had they gone to the NIT. That way, perhaps nobody would have noticed. And Johnson and Augmon and Anthony wouldn't have had so much explaining to do whenever their NBA teammates were filling out their brackets.

Those UNLV teams were pretenders, not contenders. They were Gerry Cooney in a bracket full of Larry Holmeses. Only they never had an aging Ken Norton they could beat up on.

Until Friday, when they held serve against Georgia Tech in a tedious game that should have been played in a grinder mill, it had been 16 years since the Rebels' last NCAA victory. Now they are on the cusp of making the Sweet 16, although it's a pretty big cusp they will have to navigate to make it to St. Louis next weekend.

As good as the Rebels are on defense, Wisconsin, which was the No. 1 team in the land just a couple of weeks before this Madness began, is a little bit better. And a whole lot bigger.

Still, if you have to draw a No. 2 seed this early, this is the one you want. The way these teams shoot the ball - which is to say they prefer not to - it could wind up 41-37, depending on how long the peach baskets remain in place.

Unlike those great Rebels teams of yesteryear, this one doesn't strike fear in your heart during the pregame warm-ups. In fact, those who arrived early to the United Center on Friday with memories like elephants must have thought the Rebels and Yellow Jackets had switched uniforms.

Georgia Tech looked big and mean. UNLV did not. Even the Georgia Tech guards had wingspans like 747s. UNLV's looked like single-engine Cessnas.

At halftime, with UNLV ahead by seven and ESPN accepting live e-mail from fans, somebody wanted to know how the Yellow Jackets were going to deal with UNLV's superior athleticism in the second half.

UNLV? Superior athletes? Either this viewer was stuck in the '90s or he wasn't watching the same game as Billy Packer. Or maybe he was, because sometimes I'm not sure what game Packer is watching, either.

The question that should have been asked was, "Does UNLV have enough smoke and mirrors to hold off Georgia Tech in the second half?"

Granted, that's not being totally fair or accurate. Smoke and mirrors suggest an illusion and the way the Rebels get after you on defense and play together and pick each other up when one's not hitting his shots and get on the floor for loose balls is more real than an icy blast of wind off Lake Michigan.

Even their fickle fans have noticed. The UNLV bandwagon has been gathering steam since the second half of the conference season and Rebels fans outnumbered Georgia Tech's by about 2-to-1 on Friday.

"The fans have been outstanding all year, as you know," UNLV coach Lon Kruger said after the game. "They've grown with this team, supported this team and it was great to have so many people in the building today."

Provided they survived St. Patrick's Day (and night) in Chicago, which isn't easy, even for a Las Vegan, they'll be back in the building today.

They'll be on hand to witness to a game of such interest, such magnitude that it will almost seem like another time and place. A time and place that some may still remember but many more had forgotten.