Hot-shooting Rebels climb back over .500 with win at San Jose State

UNLV coach Josh Pastner made good use of his time when he was waiting in the Thomas & Mack Center parking lot for his flat tire to be changed after Tuesday’s overtime win over Boise State.

One of several calls he made to pass the hours was to Howie Fleming Jr. around 1 a.m. with a message that he needed him to be a warrior on the floor.

The senior guard responded Saturday with 21 points and eight assists to lead the Rebels to a 76-62 road win over San Jose State at Provident Credit Union Event Center.

“That’s my dog,” Fleming said of why he picked up at that hour. “There’s more than just basketball here. We’re like a family and that’s the culture we’re trying to build here. Anybody calls me at anytime with a UNLV by their name.

“I didn’t even know he was getting his tire changed, but we talked about grit and toughness and what we needed to do to get a win today.”

Fleming went 3-for-6 on 3-pointers and made all six of his free-throw attempts to lead four UNLV players in double-figure scoring.

“Howie was a stat-sheet stuffer,” Pastner said. “He was great.”

It was part of a great shooting night for the Rebels (9-8, 4-2 Mountain West) against shorthanded San Jose State (6-13, 1-7), which was missing its four leading scorers.

The victory was the second straight for the Rebels, who made a season-high 11 3-pointers on just 23 attempts and had four players make multiple attempts from behind the arc. The Rebels average just six makes per game from long distance and had made 40 percent of their attempts just once in a game before Saturday.

The Spartans got 22 points from Melvin Bell Jr.

Here are three takeaways from UNLV’s win:

1. Shots start falling

It wasn’t just the 3-pointers that were going in for the Rebels.

UNLV went 11-for-12 from the free-throw line, its best mark of the season by a wide margin.

The solid performance turned around a recent trend that saw the Rebels hit 60 percent or worse of their free throws in five of the last eight games.

Emmanuel Stephen, who entered the game 7-for-18 on the season, even made both of his attempts Saturday.

So did Tyrin Jones, who had been 41 of 84 on the year.

But it was the 3-point shooting that really helped UNLV pull away.

The Rebels entered the game shooting just 29.5 percent from distance and the only previous time they had shot over 40 percent in a game was a 5-for-11 effort in a blowout loss to Wyoming.

They shot the ball often and shot it well on Saturday, including a 3-for-3 performance from 29.3 percent shooter Kimani Hamilton.

“He made the right plays and got great looks,” Pastner said of Hamilton. “But he played the right way is the reason the ball went in the basket.”

2. Sharing the ball

UNLV had 17 assists on 27 made field goals in the game, a stat that pleased Pastner.

“I thought we really shared the ball,” he said. “We’re getting better offensively. The open man is the go-to man. The go-to man is the open man. The violence of our cutting and the ball doesn’t stick. It’s not given a headache. It’s not getting massaged. People aren’t killing the grass standing around. Our cutting is really good.”

Pastner credited Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, who had played very little point guard before being pressed into duty due to injury. After scoring a career-high 33 points last time out, he was more of a distributor Saturday with 10 points, four assists and zero turnovers.

“He’s not a natural point guard, but he’s really learning the position,” Pastner said. “And he was warring over all those screens (on defense). He was awesome.”

3. Too many whistles

Stephen continues to be plagued by foul trouble even though he was only called for a season-low three Saturday.

He had fouled out of three straight games and four of the eight in which he had played this season since returning from injury.

He had four fouls in each of the other four games.

Stephen picked up his second foul Saturday just 3:31 into the first half and had to head to the bench.

The foul trouble limited him to just 23 minutes of action as he finished with four points and six rebounds.

Stephen also drew the ire of Pastner for a second straight game. After picking up a technical foul late in Monday’s victory over Boise State, he was arguing with officials again during the second half Saturday.

Pastner was picked up on the broadcast yelling at Stephen to stop complaining about the referees.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.