Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Joe Hawk

Passion play: Rebels' postseason hopes ride on intensity, smarts

At a point in the season when the UNLV basketball team should be playing with the eye of the tiger, "Rants & Raves" is here to tell you these Rebels are playing more with -- purrrrr! -- the eye of the housecat:

Where is the defensive intensity, Rebels? Where are the offensive smarts, UNLV? Granted, Air Force can be an aggravating team to play, and, yes, the Rebels did beat the Falcons 74-70 Monday night in a Mountain West Conference game at the Thomas & Mack Center. But if UNLV plays at Colorado State on Saturday and Wyoming next week the way they played against Air Force and, two days earlier, New Mexico (a 74-69 win), they could easily lose both road games. ...

The rest of this season will be whatever the Rebels want to make of it. If they want to go to the NCAA Tournament, only they can make it happen. Not the coaches, not the fans. Only the players. But they have to want it badly enough. They have to commit everything they have to the mission, starting with their hearts on defense and their heads on offense. ...

UNLV point(s) guard Marcus Banks continues to amaze. It's not so much that the senior had 31 points Monday night -- his fifth game of 30 or more this season -- it's the way he can create something out of absolutely nothing. Lance Burton isn't this magical! ...

Remember when UNLV basketball was a passion for locals? Even with the Rebels targeting back-to-back 20-win seasons under second-year coach Charlie Spoonhour, it appears to be little more than a passing interest this year. When only about 8,000 fans showed up for a televised Saturday afternoon game against New Mexico, that was disappointing. But when the number didn't improve for Air Force -- a team that beat the Rebels earlier this season -- that was truly

disheartening. ...

The Rebels have a season-ticket base of 6,968 fans, but either some of them don't care enough to show up for games or the program's walk-up crowd is abysmally minimal. Either way, this program deserves much better support. ...

So what if the Lakers' Kobe Bryant needed to step outside of the team's offense late Sunday night to stretch his streak of 40-point games to nine? The win over the Seattle SuperSonics was in the bag -- and how often does a player get an opportunity to match one of Michael Jordan's accomplishments? As amazing as Bryant has been of late, however, don't expect him to equal, let alone surpass, Wilt Chamberlain's NBA record of 14 consecutive games. That's too much pressure even for a cool customer like Kobe. ...

All this fretting and fussing and fuming over whether Mike Tyson would be healthy enough to beat Clifford Etienne in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday night. What wasted worrying! The flu Tyson had 10 days ago put up more of a fight than that stiff, Etienne. ...

The way he laid smiling on the mat after his 49-second loss to Tyson, knowing he had collected a cool $1 million for his "effort," the least Etienne can do is change his last name to ATM. ...

Sirens and flashing red lights had to go off at the office of the Nevada Athletic Commission after Tyson said in the postfight news conference, "I like getting high." That Tyson likes to toke is no joke, and his blatant admission to such presents just one more issue the fighter will have to address should he try to be relicensed in the state -- and you just know he will attempt to be relicensed here! ...

Considering her lame performance in Memphis, former figure skater and now boxing wannabe Tonya Harding should be banned from the ring -- just like she's been banned from the rink. ...

UNLV has released its 2003 football schedule, and with the early nonconference portion consisting of games at home vs. Toledo, at Kansas, at Wisconsin, home vs. Hawaii and at UNR, the Rebels have a real chance of going 4-1 (with a lone loss at Wisconsin). Of course, they also have a real chance of going 1-4 (with a lone win at Kansas). ...

Could Las Vegas native Kurt Busch be any more primed to win his first NASCAR Winston Cup race of the young season? Two second-place finishes and now coming home for Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway? Just hand the kid the trophy and get out of the way of his No. 97 Ford!

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Joe Hawk's sports talk radio show, "For the Record," with co-host Ron Frazier, airs 10:05 a.m. to noon weekdays on KSHP-AM (1400).

Joe Hawk's column is published Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 387-2912 or jhawk@reviewjournal.com.