A year later, UNLV reaps rewards from victory over No. 1 Tar Heels

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

It wasn't the perfect storm that swallowed George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg and the others in those massive waves.

It was a different kind.

It was, for UNLV basketball, just perfect.

"Saturday night after Thanksgiving on ESPN and, for whatever reason, everyone was watching," Rebels coach Dave Rice said. "Recruits, opposing coaches and players, everyone. We score 90 points playing our style of basketball and beat the No. 1 team in the country.

"It was huge. It was a program-changing win. It expedited the process of our program being talked about nationally."

And then some.

And then a lot.

The Rebels have come to the home of all that is Carolina blue and white, searching for a 10th consecutive victory as what promises to be the toughest Mountain West season in history inches closer and closer.

They will encounter a North Carolina team today neither as hyped nor talented as one that played the Rebels at Orleans Arena on Nov. 26, 2011, when the Tar Heels were ranked No. 1 and UNLV had a first-year coach with a team searching for the type of signature win that makes headlines across the country.

It came in a 90-80 final that saw UNLV open the second half on a 14-0 run with the finest five minutes of basketball it would produce all season, with a stretch of play that turned a November nonconference game into something much bigger for Rice's program.

"One loss can kill you, but it's not terminal," UNC coach Roy Williams said. "But one big win can really give you confidence and linger for a while."

UNLV's victory against the Tar Heels lingered into big recruiting news.

Khem Birch was watching. He was unhappy at Pittsburgh and would leave school the following month, a McDonald's All-America center in search of a new college.

He chose UNLV, telling Rice on a recruiting trip how impressed he was with not only the team's win against North Carolina, but how it transpired.

How the Rebels ran with one of the best running teams in America. How they pushed tempo against a program that usually does all the pushing.

Anthony Bennett wasn't watching. He was playing a game for Findlay Prep in Texas, but heard the final score and later saw highlights. He would eventually rely heavily on advice from Birch, a fellow Canadian, when picking UNLV over Florida and Oregon.

"Khem is my guy," Bennett said. "He is a big reason why I chose UNLV."

It's not a reach: If the Rebels lose to North Carolina last year, there's a good chance neither Bennett nor Birch become Rebels.

"I know that win certainly enhanced our chances of getting both of them," Rice said. "It wasn't as if we needed to throw one in at the buzzer to win. We beat a terrific North Carolina team playing the way we want to play. If winning is the most important thing, I believe our style of play is right there with it."

Rice is not mistaken when he says last year's result will have no bearing on how today's game unfolds, on how UNLV will fare against a UNC team that, while 6-0 at home this season, struggled making shots in losses to Butler, Indiana and Texas.

But the UNLV coach continues to hear from others about the win at Orleans Arena, about what it meant and how it changed perception. It was just his seventh game as a head coach but introduced him and his staff to a national audience that might not otherwise have known or thought much about them.

"The first thing is, how different our team is now," Williams said. "We're as different as night and day. (Bennett) adds a lot for them, but they had a good team last year, too. It's a different team for them, but not nearly as much as it is for us. That's the big question: Can my new team play better than the old team did against them last year?

"I told our team (UNLV) beat us last year, but that's the only thing I said in case anyone who was on our team forgot. I don't spend a lot of time talking about it. I spend no time talking about it. That's a better way of putting it.

"I'm trying to figure out how the hell to get the ball in bounds and we're about to play against a team that would be one of the two best in the ACC. We're in the big-time stuff now."

My, how things change in a year.

How one win can change everything.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.