Poor shooting caps offensively spotty week for Rebels

By Ryan Greene

Sunday, March 8, 2009 | 1:12 a.m.

SAN DIEGO — The one thing a team (still) harboring NCAA Tournament dreams in the first week in March cannot afford to lose is confidence.

UNLV coach Lon Kruger has been around long enough to know when a boost in that department is needed.

On Saturday night, he stood on the sidelines as his team put up its second uninspiring offensive showing in four days in a 57-46 loss at San Diego State.

It was the first time since the sixth and seventh games in UNLV hoops history in 1958-59 that the Rebels have failed to score at least 50 points in back-to-back games.

"We've got to try to get some confidence back offensively," the fifth-year UNLV coach said. "We've got to work on it the next few days in practice and see if we can't shoot a little bit better."

Time for the Rebels to hit a stride offensively and stay there is running out.

In fact, the hour glass is darn near full on the bottom half.

They'll now try to continue treading water in the crowded pool of NCAA Tournament hopefuls on Thursday afternoon in the Mountain West Conference tournament quarterfinals against — guess who — SDSU.

And when the two square off at the Thomas & Mack Center, UNLV will be dealing with the same issues that forced it to struggle to score for the second time this season against the Aztecs.

More than anything, it was SDSU's size and length on both ends, in both hedging UNLV's offensive possessions and grabbing numerous offensive caroms.

But hitting shots has something to do with it, too, no doubt.

"It's been very frustrating," senior forward Joe Darger said of the Rebels' offensively dormant week. "Credit to the other team for playing good defense, but there are a lot of shots that we should be knocking down that we've been missing. Hopefully, we get out of this drought as soon as possible."

That advantage helped SDSU total 16 offensive rebounds and 10 second-chance points.

But the fact again this week was that the Rebels simply couldn't hit shots.

UNLV was 15-of-45 from the floor and 3-of-17 from 3-point range.

The most paralyzing stretch on Saturday came right when it looked like Kruger's club was ready to put together two tough, gritty halves.

With 14:18 to play in the game, Oscar Bellfield nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to give the Rebels a 32-30 advantage.

Their next field goal wouldn't come for nearly 9 minutes of game time, when a René Rougeau layup did little to quiet a Cox Arena crowd of 11,553 that had recently exploded following back-to-back Kyle Spain threes, which put SDSU ahead 45-35.

"We've had trouble scoring consistently on the year," Kruger said. "We know that especially on the road, it's even more magnified when you go on a stretch (like that), because you can't continue to ask your defense to fight and fight and fight. And given their offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities, I thought our defense, I thought they really fought like crazy. But it's just too much to ask when you're not scoring on the other end and you're also giving them second opportunities on their end."

UNLV was solid defensively, forcing 20 Aztec turnovers and holding their foes to a 15-of-42 showing from the field.

Basically, the door was left open repeatedly for UNLV to close out the regular season on a much-needed positive note.

"It's not surprising," senior guard Wink Adams said. "I think tonight we played good defense. It was a combination of we didn't hit shots, didn't shoot a good percentage and (allowed) second-chance shots. That's what hurt us. If we would have won the battle on loose balls and hit open shots, we would have been in the game."

San Diego State essentially cut the head off of UNLV's offense by quieting Adams completely.

In arguably his worst offensive performance of the season while healthy, UNLV's seventh all-time leading scorer finished with 3 points on 1-of-9 shooting.

"They all helped each other when I got the ball," Adams said. "You could see the defense, they just kind of forgot about everybody else and clogged it up, so I had to pass."

Still, no matter the cause, numbers don't lie in telling the story of how tough of a week this was for the Rebels in terms of simply scoring points.

In its final two regular season games, UNLV was a combined 30-of-95 (31.6 percent) from the floor and 9-of-40 (22.5 percent) from 30-point range.

Adams, however, said he's up for the challenge of figuring out the Aztecs on Thursday.

He — and his teammates — really have no choice if those NCAA Tournament hopes are to be kept from fading completely.

"I've got to find ways to score," he said. "I'm always up for the challenge. It's a challenge for my team as well as myself."