Post battle the one to watch as UNLV looks for sweep at Utah State

By Taylor Bern

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015 | 2 a.m.

David Collette’s final play at the Thomas & Mack Center was a memorable one. Utah State’s freshman forward forgot the game was tied in the final seconds of overtime and, when UNLV guard Cody Doolin grabbed a defensive rebound, Collette wrapped him up for a foul that essentially handed the Rebels a victory.

What UNLV coach Dave Rice remembers more is what Collette did leading up to the end.

“He had his way against us,” Rice said.

Collette, a freshman who would be a senior if he began playing his first year out of high school, had one of his best offensive games of the season against UNLV, navigating his way around the post for 24 points on 12-of-16 shooting.

He presents the most intriguing matchup of UNLV’s trip to Utah State (16-10, 9-5) tonight at 6:30 p.m. Las Vegas time on CBS Sports Network, because the Aggies’ offense doesn’t make it easy to put him at the top of the scouting report. In Mountain West play Utah State is hitting 44 percent behind the three-point line, easily the best mark in the league, and there’s nothing that gets Rice stomping and folding his arms quicker than giving up 3s.

“If you leave them open you can pretty much count on them to make it,” Rice said.

That means Collette will face mostly one-on-one post defense against a rotation of Goodluck Okonoboh, Christian Wood and Dwayne Morgan. Okonoboh will likely get the majority of that assignment and the winner of that battle could determine the winner of the game.

Okonoboh wasn’t all that healthy during their last meeting, playing 20 minutes after sitting out a game with a foot injury. It was UNLV’s next game, a victory at UNR, that Rice recently cited as a turning point for Okonoboh, and that’s clear by his offensive numbers.

The total attempts are nearly the same and in the last seven games, including that win, Okonoboh is shooting 71.9 percent compared to 50 percent in his seven games prior to that. His productivity at that end will make Collette and Utah State’s defense pay attention to him in a way that didn’t exist in their last meeting.

However, the more intriguing back and forth is on UNLV’s defensive end, where Okonoboh is shot-blocking extraordinaire with mixed results guarding one-on-one.

On Saturday at New Mexico, Okonoboh thwarted many of the Lobos’ plans. He swatted five shots and could have had a lot more except, Lobos guard Hugh Greenwood said, the guards purposely stopped driving towards him.

Yet New Mexico big man Obij Aget scored a career-high 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting by winning one-on-one post battles, mostly against Okonoboh. So it’s unclear if guarding the post without help will be enough for the Rebels or if they’ll have to bring help and hope the close-outs are strong enough to disrupt Utah State’s outside shooters.

With four games remaining, UNLV (15-12, 6-8) is fighting for the sixth seed and a bye in the Mountain West tournament. Currently the Rebels are one game back of Fresno State, and if they would tie UNLV has the head-to-head victory.

It’s a quick turnaround from Saturday’s trip to New Mexico, just the team’s second true road win of the season. To help with that the Runnin’ Rebel Club paid for a charter flight back to Las Vegas, the first charter back of the season, so the Rebels had a couple of nights at home before heading to the place Rice called home for one year.

Rice was an assistant under Stew Morrill for the 2004-05 season and before UNLV’s win at the Mack Rice gave a gift to his former boss, who’s retiring at the end of this season. Morrill would probably prefer a victory as he’s 0-3 against Rice.

To get that win Morrill’s probably going to need his big man to give a repeat performance of the last meeting. Everything except the end.

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