Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV Basketball:

Rebels’ quest for Mountain West title begins tonight against Fresno State

Rebels vs South Dakota 2

Steve Marcus

Sparks shoot from the glove of UNLV mascot Hey Reb during a game against South Dakota at the Thomas & Mack Center Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015.

Dave Rice stood in the visitor’s locker room inside one of the best college basketball venues in the country and shared a message with his team that boiled down to this: The Mountain West is tougher than you probably think it is, because it will be just as hard, if not harder, to go play well at Air Force as it was at Kansas.

Last year’s Rebels had already blown a big lead and lost on New Year’s Eve at Wyoming by the time they lost at KU, so one would think the message would sink in rather easily. But four losses in their next five games told a different story, and that was the start of UNLV’s worst finish in Mountain West history (seventh).

The message Rice heard back after the season, the one that he’s trying to make sure this year’s Rebels (9-4) don’t need to re-learn, was obvious based on the poor performances and results: “We had to find out for ourselves how good this conference is,” Rice said the players told him.

“It sounds crazy, but sometimes when you’re dealing with 18-, 19-, 20-yeard-old guys, lessons can be learned in a hard way. We don’t need to have to learn those lessons,” Rice said after UNLV’s victory against South Dakota. “If we get beat we get beat, but we don’t need to get beat because we didn’t play hard enough or we didn’t play together.”

UNLV’s bid for its first regular season league title since 2000 begins tonight at 8 against Fresno State (9-4) on ESPNU. The Rebels expect to have both freshman Stephen Zimmerman Jr., who missed a game because of a thigh injury, and junior Daquan Cook, who was just reinstated after a 13-game suspension for driving under the influence.

This year’s team is more experienced than last year’s version, although most of them haven’t played in the Mountain West, a league that presents a few unique challenges from altitude to some half-empty arenas that lack any atmosphere.

This is the season of #noexcuses, though, so no one is going to be interested in any explanations should the Rebels no show for full halves at a time. And lapses like that could be even more damaging this year because right now it’s hard to make a case for the Mountain West as anything more than a one-bid league, which could make conference tournament seeding more important.

“This is going to make or break your season,” said senior guard Ike Nwamu. “Conference season is where you get to determine where you finish up.”

The Rebels’ first opponent will test how much UNLV has learned from its nonconference issues, as the Bulldogs are one of the league’s best offensive rebounding teams. Coach Rodney Terry’s team is also one of the most experienced in the country, with a rotation built almost entirely of upperclassmen.

“Coach Terry’s teams are always tough,” Rice said. “… Whoever gets the 50/50 balls is probably going to win.”

Fresno State came into the Mack in 2013 and won as a 14-point underdog to complete a season sweep and hand Rice his first home regular-season conference loss, but since then UNLV has won three straight in the series. Last year they met only once because of the Mountain West’s unbalanced schedule, a game UNLV won 73-61 at home.

Senior guard Jerome Seagears couldn’t travel with last year’s team because of his redshirt, but from his perspective on the bench and talking to teammates he felt like another lesson the Rebels need to know immediately rather than learn is that they’re a marked team in this league.

“Us and San Diego State probably get the best shot from everybody,” Seagears said. “That just comes from tradition. We need to live up to it.”

UNLV is also trying to just live up to its own expectation, which is a regular season title. Rice hasn’t finished higher than third, but the field probably hasn’t been this weak before.

It’s all right there for the Rebels, and it starts with understanding the challenge ahead.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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