Must-win for Rebels, and they didn’t
Whatever it was going to take — shoot its way to victory beyond the 3-point line, hope an opposing motivated point guard from Australia finally missed enough of his own jumpers after being maliciously attacked on Twitter earlier in the day, take advantage of a whistle that almost always finds the home team, shoot twice as many free throws as the other guys, pray the multiple leaks in its zone defense wouldn’t ultimately spell disaster — UNLV’s basketball team was left with little choice against New Mexico on Wednesday night.
It had to beat the Lobos.
And still, it couldn’t.
The fall continues.
The losses pile up.
UNLV fell to New Mexico 71-69, a sixth loss in seven games for the Rebels, the second Mountain West home setback in three tries, the latest shoulda, woulda, coulda, didn’t string of defeats.
You could tell immediately what UNLV’s fan base thought of the team having over the past few weeks become an afterthought in a bad Mountain West.
UNLV announced a gathering of 12,125, and it was dead-flat quiet in the Thomas & Mack Center for the first 30 minutes or so. The only real noise before a final frantic stretch came during timeouts, when free gifts were shot into the stands.
Everyone loves a T-shirt.
“Another conference loss,” UNLV coach Dave Rice said. “That’s how the conference season is, one or two plays here or there. The only thing we are left with is to come back to practice and see what our response is and get ready for Utah State (at home) on Saturday. We have had five games now that could have gone the other way.”
But they haven’t.
UNLV can’t make a game’s biggest play, grab its most important rebound, get its most critical defensive stop.
The UNLV zone that kept San Diego State at bay for most of the game Saturday never showed any resistance. The Rebels allowed a team that entered shooting 29.5 percent from 3-point range to make 7 of 18 for 39 percent. It also took only a few swings of the ball by the Lobos to find entry inside against the zone.
The team that says it wants to be defined by man-to-man defense can’t play much man because it can’t guard people off the bounce. It played man on New Mexico’s final possession and gave up an offensive rebound and layup that decided the final margin.
It hurts when your best shot blocker (Goodluck Okonoboh) misses such a game with an injured foot, some of which led to the Lobos outscoring UNLV 38-16 in the paint.
It really hurts, then, when frontcourt players Dwayne Morgan and Chris Wood battle foul trouble much of the evening.
But this is again on the Rebels. They had twice as many turnovers as New Mexico (12 to 6). They were in the bonus with 11:47 left, in the double bonus with 7:55 remaining and shot 11 more free throws than the Lobos.
They had absolutely everything in their favor and still awake today 10-9 overall and 1-5 in the conference.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” freshman guard Rashad Vaughn said. “We have to stay together and continue to work and find that answer. It’s a bumpy road right now. I think we’re going to come out of it and it will turn around. Just try to be better every day.”
UNLV also reportedly has one of its fans to blame for igniting a spark under New Mexico senior Hugh Greenwood.
Few college athletes have done more to help cancer awareness than Greenwood, whose mother is battling breast cancer for a second time. He talked after Wednesday’s game — after he scored 22 points and made six 3-pointers on nine attempts, a player who is shooting 28.8 percent on 3s this season — about how a UNLV fan had gone after him and his mother on Twitter earlier in the day.
The fan, who goes by the Twitter name TheRebelAsshole, attacked Greenwood and his mother’s condition before the game, suggesting the player could drive her to the game in a hearse.
Afterward, when Greenwood spoke about the incident and how he believed a line had been crossed, two more tweets from the account of TheRebelAsshole were aimed at the player.
No. 1: “The only line being crossed is the line between life and death your mom is on. Sweet dreams.”
No. 2: “Thanks for the shoutout. Cancer will still be real when you wake up.”
It should be noted that the UNLV student section wrote Greenwood a letter stating the person on Twitter had no affiliation to it and that it stood behind and supported Greenwood in his fight against cancer.
It also should be noted, in case we forget on a daily basis, that there are sick, ignorant, uneducated idiots in this world.
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 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.
