By Ryan Greene (contact), Rob Miech (contact)

Tue, Dec 2, 2008 (2:09 a.m.)

Sam Morris

UNLV guard Wink Adams shoots a three over Cal guard Nikola Knezevic during the second half of the game Friday at the Thomas & Mack Center. Cal won the game 73-55.

Well after most of his UNLV teammates had left the court Monday afternoon at the Cox Pavilion practice gym, senior guard Wink Adams was beginning to breathe heavily again.

At that point, he'd hoisted more than 200 shots from the perimeter following a two-hour team practice. The final few looked a bit flat, as Adams was tiring.

Reandre Adams, Wink’s mother who visited from Houston for the weekend, shouted to grab his attention. After sitting there and watching him practice, she motioned in the air with her wrist, as if following through on a jumper.

It was a reminder to Wink to do the same, to snap his wrist.

On the next shot, from the corner, he did just that.

Swish.

"Told you," she said.

It was just another pointer along the way as Adams tries to emerge from a shooting slump in which he went 5-of-25 from the floor in losses over the weekend to California and Cincinnati.

After the defeat to the Bearcats, he vowed to be in the gym by Sunday morning at the latest. Instead, he spent some quality time with his visiting family. He made up for it Monday and had even more planned.

"I was in today shooting, I'm gonna be in here later tonight shooting, tomorrow ..." Adams said. "Just got to put up a lot of shots, get yourself out of it."

Adams has maintained his typical upbeat demeanor through the recent rough patch. But that doesn't mean he's accepting it.

"For us being so small, we've got to shoot the ball at a good percentage," he said. "We depend on Joe (Darger) to hit shots, Kendall (Wallace), myself. Whenever we're open, nine times out of 10, we've got to hit that shot so we can be effective and start going down low, too.

“Once we start hitting shots, we can go to our other things."

Extra energy

UNLV players seemed to start practice Monday with a bit more exuberance, a little more enthusiasm and a lot of communication.

The Rebels didn’t practice Sunday, so the Monday run was their first time back together on a court since the weekend’s defeats to Cal and Cincinnati.

It was the first time UNLV had lost at home on consecutive days in 28 seasons.

“A day off and losing a couple will, hopefully, do that … kinda refocus and realize we have to do things sharper and with more conviction,” said Rebels coach Lon Kruger of the renewed energy.

“You always try to do that coming out of every ball game. When you lose a game, I think that’s reinforced.”

Kruger, in particular, was a bit louder and focused, especially ensuring that his first team stuck to his defensive principles in drills against the second and third teams.

“It’s a great reminder to our players that we have to approach games with the mentality that each possession is significant, take care of details, just do all the little things well,” he said.

“They have to compete like each possession is the most important one. When you lose games, it usually gets people’s attention. Human nature kicks in a little bit. (You) say, ‘Oooh, we have a long way to go.’”

Hold the applause

When pressed, about the one item atop the list of improvements he wants to see in his squad Wednesday night in Fresno, Kruger paused for about five seconds.

The reality, he said, that genuine understanding of knowing that there is a lot of work to do. A 5-0 start to the season might have inflated a few heads.

“We won some ball games early that maybe were a little bit of a trick,” Kruger said, “people patting us on the back a little bit, telling us this or that, and sometimes believing that. This weekend reminded us that we have a long way to go.”

Cox practice gym a slump buster?

Maybe the team's practices being moved into the Cox practice gym over the next two weeks isn't so bad, especially for Adams and others who need some shooting work.

"Honestly, we like these rims better," Adams said with a grin. "It's just something about shooting in here, everybody shoots lights out in this gym. We always mess around and say if we played a game in here, we'd probably put up 100 points easy."

With the National Finals Rodeo in town, it's a stretch similar to just before the season, when the Professional Bull Riders occupied the Thomas & Mack Center.

To get to and from the practice gym from their locker room, the Rebels had to traverse over a foot-high dirt path laid down in the tunnel.

"I think the rims are maybe a little softer in here, and the background's a bit different to shoot in," Darger said. "The more times we can shoot in the Thomas & Mack, the better. It's kind of a disadvantage to have the rodeo in there for basketball reasons, but right now we're playing on the road anyway."

The practice gym can throw shooters off from straight on. On one end, the glass backboard is mere feet from the wall, with a huge red sign behind it. On the other end, however, there is plenty of space – almost a half-court's worth – to the wall.

Darger broke out of his slump in Saturday's loss to Cincinnati, hitting six of nine 3-point tries. He stayed after practice, with Adams and René Rougeau, to put up a slew of jumpers.

But no added focus was put on shooting during practice.

"The most important thing for us to worry about is dictating the games and taking things away on defense, boxing out on rebounds, taking care of the things we should be taking care of," Darger said. "Shooting slumps, everyone's gonna go through them. You can't let them get you down too much."

Tre’s latest percentage

Sophomore point guard Tre’Von Willis smiled widely when asked for the latest percentage update on his right shoulder.

He slightly sprained it a few weeks ago, and it’s an old injury.

But a cortisone shot after Saturday night’s game helped. Last week, he upgraded his shoulder to “72 percent” from 65.

“The shot got me to about 82,” Willis said. “I’m feeling pretty good. I can do things with it. I can sleep with it. I don’t have to worry about rolling over on it. It feels comfortable.”

Two games added to TV slate

Two of UNLV's next three games – all of which will be played away from the Thomas & Mack Center – will be televised by UNLV ISP Sports & Entertainment Properties.

Wednesday's game at Fresno State will be shown live in Las Vegas at 7 p.m. on Las Vegas One (Cox Cable channel 19). The Dec. 14 game at the Orleans Arena against Western Michigan will be shown live at 4 p.m. on KLAS-Channel 8.

Tim Neverett will call play-by-play and former Rebels great Sidney Green will be the analyst on both telecasts.