Ron Kantowski on a rise into the Sweet 16 that only UNLV’s fans, players, coaches and parents could have possibly seen coming

Monday, March 19, 2007 | 6 a.m.

Chicago

One of these days, logic and Billy Packer, not often used in the same sentence, dictate that UNLV's charge through the Midwest bracket and back into the college basketball limelight has to end.

At some point during the next two weeks, the smart money says UNLV is going to forget the smoke and mirrors that some say are primarily responsible for the team vanquishing one quality opponent after another and raising more eyebrows than the late John Belushi, one of this city's native sons.

The longer the Rebels hang around in the NCAA Tournament, the greater the likelihood they are going to run into a bigger, stronger opponent that won't be frazzled by their gritty, relentless defense that turns cool cucumbers into lukewarm pickles. Or so say the experts and Digger Phelps.

But it wasn't last Saturday in the Big Mountain - at least that's what Packer called the Mountain West on TV - championship game against Brigham Young. It wasn't Friday in the NCAA opener against Georgia Tech. And, if you can believe it even after seeing it, it wasn't Sunday against big, bad Wisconsin from the monolithic Big 10, a conference that Billy Packer has never misidentified on TV.

The Grand Illusion, or whatever name this expert-defying postseason run by the Rebels will come to be known, continued Sunday afternoon at the United Center. Wendell White continued to show the rest of the nation what a "power guard" does, Kevin Kruger broke out of his shooting funk in the nick of time and yet another unlikely hero emerged from a UNLV bench that is getting deeper than Lake Michigan.

The seventh-seeded Rebels beat Wisconsin, the second seed in the Midwest, 74-68, to officially become a bracket buster. That grating you hear is the sound of cheese hitting the fan in the Wisconsin Dells.

So now it's on to the Sweet 16 for the 30-6 Rebels, where, I'm sure, no one will give them much of a chance, even though they will match up much better against Oregon, a guard-dominated team like themselves, than they did against the grain silos they played here.

No one, that is, besides Kevin Kruger and his teammates, some delusional fans and perhaps ESPN's Doug Gottlieb, who even before the tournament was probably the only one besides Barb Kruger, Kevin's mom, who had UNLV going to the Elite Eight.

Kevin Kruger said this is exactly the kind of result he had in mind when he stepped into a giant loophole in a former NCAA rule that enabled him to transfer to UNLV and play his senior season for his father, Lon. And I swear that when he said it his face was straighter than the three 3-point arrows he sank during crunch time Sunday.

"I honestly did," said Kruger, who missed all eight of his 3-point tries against Georgia Tech and was just 1-for-7 against Wisconsin before catching fire in a way that would have sent Mrs. O'Leary's cow running for cover.

"Nobody really believed it when I said it (but) I'm sure you can find one of those Vegas papers early on where I predicted to go to the tournament and make some noise."

If you're scoring at home - or from the seat of your pants from beyond the arc, as Kruger was at the end of the game - it was this paper he told that to, in August. But I have to confess, Kevin, when you said it we dismissed it as rhetoric.

Speaking of players who are sometimes dismissed, that would pretty much describe Curtis Terry, at least when it comes to opponents formulating a game plan for UNLV.

Chances are that if Wink Adams hadn't bruised his back in a spectacular second-half fall that sort of sounded like a grapefruit falling off the "L" tracks, Terry probably wouldn't have gotten off the bench during a 13-1 run that saw the Rebels battle back, down 53-48 with 8:19 to play. Terry made a clutch 3-pointer and also scored on a floating drive to the basket to become this day's UNLV quicker pick-me-upper.

Those plays were almost as huge as what Kruger told the Rebels during the biggest timeout of the year, the one he called after the Badgers went ahead by five and their fans were making so much noise that you swore the dairy cattle would never come home. "We had to make a decision: Were we content with what was going on or were we going to roar back," Kruger said afterward. "Our guys really stuck their noses back in there."

So for the first time in 16 years, UNLV is headed to the Sweet 16, although that's where the similarities between this team and its great ones of the past end - regardless of how many times the national press tries to fit Kruger's square pegs into Jerry Tarkanian's round holes.

We're really talking about apples and oranges here. But as the Midwest region leaves the Sears Tower behind for the Gateway Arch, we're no longing talking about fine Wisconsin cheese.

The Rebels' magic saw to that.