UNLV’s Patrick McCaw needs to find his game — and fast

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Lee Cummard scored 36 points that night, and Brigham Young's basketball team opened the 2008-09 season by defeating Long Beach State by 10 in Provo, Utah.

The following day, a senior and three-year starter, a consummate leader and as respected a player as the Cougars had, Cummard stood in front of coaches and teammates and apologized.

For shooting too much.

He then promised it would never happen again.

"We said, 'No, no, no, Lee, we need you to,'" Dave Rice remembers. "Then he went to the (NBA Development League) and wondered why nobody passed the ball. I told him, 'Lee, now it's all about survival.' He was just that unselfish."

Rice was an assistant coach at BYU then and is now encountering a similar issue as head coach at UNLV, the reality that his most important player is also the most deferential. But as bad the Mountain West is this season — and it's all sorts of average throughout 11 teams — the Rebels have no chance to contend for a regular-season title unless something changes.

Patrick McCaw must play better.

He must score more.

He must produce.

"If there is one player we are OK with being selfish, it's Pat," freshman center Stephen Zimmerman Jr. said. "He's a quiet kid. We can never read him that well. But it's big for us that he plays well."

The Rebels have had a week to digest the nightmare that was losing to Fresno State at home in a conference opener, and they return to league play tonight at a Colorado State team that allows nearly as many points a game (78) as it averages (83).

Which would make you think it an ideal time for McCaw to break out.

It's not always so easy. Do you know what they say about how different life for an assistant coach becomes once he moves over one chair to leading a program? It's the same for a player when he becomes the No. 1 scouting priority of opposing teams.

McCaw had a solid freshman season last year in starting half the team's games while averaging 9.6 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists. But he wasn't the top priority for other teams and often probably surprised some with his efforts, like when he scored 22 at New Mexico or when he made six 3-pointers at Air Force.

But opponents know him now and are designing ways to keep his scoring totals low while forcing other Rebels to beat them. Few players in college history have become the No. 1 scout priority and not struggled at first. Jimmer Fredette was one at BYU. He could have been scouting priorities 1-5 and still scored 30.

Not many others.

"We definitely need to get Pat going," junior forward Ben Carter said. "It's on me and Jerome (Seagears) and Ike (Nwamu) as upperclassmen to get in his ear and let him know we have full confidence in him to be the player we know he is capable of being. If it takes him stepping out of his comfort zone and being a little selfish at times, so be it."

Numbers rarely lie:

UNLV started the season 7-1, during which McCaw averaged a team-high 18.3 points and almost 13 shots. He scored 20 or more four straight games, and his average at one point was 19.2.

In the past six games, four of them losses, he is averaging 7.0 points and just six shots. In the past two games, McCaw has attempted a total of five shots and scored seven points. He has been, for the most part, a ghost.

Rice reportedly will try to get McCaw going by switching him to point guard in place of the senior Seagears against Colorado State, perhaps thinking the more McCaw has the ball in his hands, the more aggressive he might become.

"When we have played our best this season, Pat has played very, very well," Rice said. "We need all the things he brings to the team. He's not a guy who wants to take over a game, but we absolutely need his points. No doubt, teams are making him (a defensive priority). He was playing so well early, and he still does things like facilitate and get assists for us. But we need him to be offensively aggressive.

"He's not capable of being selfish. He's just not made that way. But we need him to look for his offense. Pat's personality is such that he needs affirmation from his teammates that he is not overstepping his bounds. People have a hard time identifying with that in this age of me, me, me, me, but he's the antithesis of that. He's such a team guy, but if he knows his teammates need him to score more, it will mean something to Pat."

They need him to.

UNLV really needs him to if it's going to contend in conference.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on "Seat and Ed" on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Twitter: @edgraney