Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun
Friday, March 9, 2012 | 1:30 a.m.
The Rebel Room
Rebels get shot at revenge in Mountain West semifinals
Las Vegas Sun sports reporters Ray Brewer, Taylor Bern and Case Keefer look at UNLV's eight-point victory over Wyoming in the first round of the conference tournament. They also discuss whether UNLV is capable of living up to their status as a favorite in tomorrow's game against New Mexico.
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Their leads weren’t holding, their shots weren’t falling and their pace wasn’t working.
It’s a good thing the Rebels manned up on the defensive end in their Mountain West Conference tournament quarterfinal game against Wyoming Thursday night. UNLV turned in one of its better defensive performances of the year to get past Wyoming 56-48.
“For a majority of the game,” UNLV coach Dave Rice said, “our defense was as good as it’s been all year long.”
The 48 points the Cowboys scored tied for the fewest the Rebels have allowed all season. UNLV held Wyoming to a dismal 17-for-58 showing from the field, which translates to a season-low 29 percent.
That’s quite the improvement from the first two times UNLV faced Wyoming. The Cowboys combined to make 45 percent of its shots in a loss last week at the Thomas & Mack Center and an upset win over the Rebels in Laramie earlier this year.
“We knew what a difficult game it was going to be,” Rice said. “We knew how good they were.”
The Rebels set the tone early. They blocked three of the Cowboys first six shots.
Two of the blocks went to Mike Moser and Brice Massamba, who made it their mission all night to control the paint and prevent Leonard Washington from getting into a rhythm for the Cowboys.
“We really came out intense on defense, bodying through a lot of screens,” Moser said. “Wyoming really does a good job of setting away from the ball screens. We were trying to be physical and not give up any easy shots.”
Wyoming made two shots in the first 17 minutes. Down 28-11 at halftime, the Cowboys had gone 3-for-24 from the floor.
Some of the Wyoming players chalked it up to missing too many open looks. Rice had a different recollection altogether.
He said the Rebels defended so well that the Cowboys went the first 29 minutes of the game without an open shot. Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt didn’t remember many, either.
“I always thought they had the high level of intensity on their defense,” Shyatt said. “That contributed a lot to missed shots.”
Wyoming was able to somewhat get back on course in the second half. The Cowboys took advantage of eight Rebels turnovers to score 16 points.
In the second half, they made a respectable 14 of their 34 shots. But most of Wyoming’s success came in one eight-minute spurt that saw it go on a 19-4 run to cut UNLV’s lead to seven.
“We quit guarding for a period of time,” Rice said. “Then, it’s very hard to turn it back on against a team like Wyoming.”
The Rebels found a way to do it. With the Cowboys surging, UNLV refocused and got back to contesting shots.
Wyoming missed five of its next six field goals in a crucial four-minute stretch at the end of the game. UNLV only scored five points during the span, but that was enough.
Defense saved the evening for the Rebels.
“I felt our defense triggered our offense,” Anthony Marshall said. “If you look at the games where we play our best, we play really good defense.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.
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