UNLV shakes off recent losses with close win

UNLV had been losing so many close basketball games in recent weeks that the Rebels were putting people in mind of the old “Andy Griffith Show.”

Remember the episode when Barney and Floyd the Barber and the other good people of Mayberry accused a fellow named Henry Bennett of being the town jinx? And just to prove there is no such thing as bad luck, and a town jinx, Andy rigged a drawing at the church social so Henry had to pull out the winning number from a hat.

Instead of pulling out the winning number, ol’ Henry pulled out 6 7/8 — the hat size.

Like Henry Bennett of Mayberry, UNLV coach Dave Rice was starting to believe UNLV was jinxed. He and the Rebels keep trying to draw the winning number, but they keep pulling out the hat size instead.

Until Saturday against Utah State at the Thomas &Mack Center, when the Aggies’ David Collette pulled the size from the hat, leading to a 79-77 overtime victory for UNLV.

Collette probably was the best player on the floor until there were 2.4 seconds to play in overtime. He had scored 24 points on 12-of-16 shooting in 38 minutes. The Rebels couldn’t stop him.

With the game tied, he and the visitors from Logan were holding for what possibly would have been the last shot.

They missed.

UNLV’s Cody Doolin grabbed the rebound.

The crowd (what remained of it) shrieked.

Then David Collette did something inexplicable, something right out of ol’ Henry Bennett of Mayberry’s playbook.

Losing track of down and distance, or at least the college basketball equivalents thereof, he draped his huge 6-foot-8-inch frame over Doolin’s slight 6-3 one, going right over the top as if to commit an intentional foul.

The crowd shrieked again.

An intentional foul! With the game tied at 77 and Doolin about 84 feet away from making the winning basket.

Doolin made the first free throw. He tried to intentionally miss the second. He banked it in instead.

Rebels win. Somehow.

That’s just the kind of game it was. Even the starting time — 5 p.m. — was weird.

Afterward Rice, who was dressed in a gray plaid suit and red tie and white shoes (Coaches vs. Cancer) in the manner of Pee Wee Herman, said the Rebels would move forward and should be able to build momentum from a game like this.

He did not mention being jinxed or snakebit. Not after Patrick McCaw’s runner at the end of regulation, that appeared to have no chance of going in, went in, forcing overtime.

One supposes David Collette will move forward, too. It might take him a little more time to build momentum, though.

Rice said he could empathize with the big guy, whom he once had tried to recruit.

“Absolutely,” Rice said. “I have great sympathy for anybody who is a great person and a great player who has something like that happen to them.”

Likewise, Doolin said. “I felt probably the same way coach did. He played such a great game.”

Earlier this season, it seemed UNLV was winning every game that went down to the wire. During conference play, it has been the polar opposite.

The Rebels, a talented if rudderless bunch, had somehow slipped to 1-5 coming into Saturday. They had lost four of the five by an average of 3.8 points. The other loss was by nine points at Boise State, but even that one went into overtime. You might recall UNLV handling the ball as if it were an overinflated ticking time bomb.

Shades of Henry Bennett.

But had Andy Taylor attended the postgame news conference, he might have pointed out there really is no such thing as bad luck, that when you don’t guard the perimeter, and you don’t block out for rebounds, sometimes you will lose close games.

Sheriff Taylor, being the knowledgeable sort, might have said it was about more than Rebels fans disparaging players on the other team with insensitive social media messages about their ailing loved ones. Stay strong, Hugh Greenwood.

On Saturday, Rebels fans disparaged themselves by leaving with about three minutes to play in regulation with UNLV down five and apparently headed for another close defeat.

Here’s the thing about UNLV: It’s not a bad team so much as it is an underachieving one. If you squinted your eyes and had stayed to the end, you might have seen that yourself.

The Rebels have talent, and they have shooters.

This is a team that beat Arizona. That speaks of what it is capable, though UNLV did not defend the perimeter well against Utah State (again), and did not block out well (again). The usual shortcomings allowed Collette and Jalen Moore, who took to the floor sporting an audacious Dr. J. Afro, far too many offensive rebounds and second-chance points on putbacks.

And yet, why do I think UNLV still is capable of running the table at the Mountain West tournament?

Honestly, it still could happen in a best-case scenario. It might even be 50-50 in a worst-case scenario. The Mountain West is just that bad this season.

OK, maybe it’s 40-60 in a worst-case scenario.

But if it happens, it won’t be because Dave Rice pulled a rabbit out of the hat, or David Collette pulled the size out of the hat.

Should it happen, it probably will be because Rice’s team guarded the perimeter and blocked out better for rebounds, and because Rashad Vaughn (31 points) did his George Gervin, San Antonio Spurs, circa 1979-80 thing in a far bigger game than this one.

And least that’s what Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, N.C., probably would say.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.