Ron Kantowski salutes a Rebels team that gave it all they had and gave their fans one heck of a ride

Saturday, March 24, 2007 | 7 a.m.

And so this is where the magic ends.

This is where Madness turns to sadness.

This is where the Lord of the Rims or the Knights of the Roundball Table or that crusty old court jester Billy Packer have decreed this magical, mystical postseason tour the Rebels have embarked on must cease and desist.

The Oregon Ducks might have had a little to do with it, too.

It has been a fairy-tale season for the Rebels and will be recalled as such long after one of those top seeds cuts down the nets at the Final Four in Atlanta next weekend.

But this would be the night UNLV would look into the mirror and gaze upon its own image. Only it was wearing white and bright yellow instead of red and white. It was just a bit quicker, a tad nastier on defense and shot its 3's better. And it had a 5-6 Hobbit who nobody could guard.

In the end of their Sweet 16 game at the Edward Jones Dome, Oregon's four guards and a big man were a little better than UNLV's four guards and a big man. The Ducks, behind mini-mite freshman point guard Tajuan Porter's 33 points, won 76-72. One of just eight teams still standing, it is Oregon which will play Florida for a Final Four berth on Sunday, and it is Oregon which has earned the right to be dismissed as a non-factor by Packer.

So the Rebels finally learned what the so-called experts have been saying all along, what even their most loyal bandwagon-jumping fans had to know in that deep-down place where you can't call timeout in midair when your team is flying out of bounds: That they were not destined to be crowned the fairest college basketball team in the land, no matter how hard they tried.

And no matter how often they succeeded, which pretty much was limited to days that end in 'Y.'

And in the end, they succeeded in creating their own identity even as others insisted on linking them with the ghost of UNLV's basketball past.

"I don't know if we're that type of team," third-year Rebels coach Lon Kruger said before the Oregon game, speaking of the days when UNLV would frighten an opponent into submission just by getting off the team bus. "They had five or six NBA guys."

These Rebels do not.

These Rebels have two or three guys who might play pro ball in Turkey.

That's what makes what they accomplished even more remarkable and endearing to UNLV fans, especially the 9,000 or so diehards who bothered showing up for the season opener against Hawaii.

"The community has embraced this group - not to the level that Tark had, because they had won for many, many years," said Kruger, who became just the fifth coach in NCAA history to take four different schools to the NCAA Tournament - and now will be deluged with offers to make it five.

"Hopefully, we're just starting that process."

Hopefully, he'll be back to see it through.