Air Force ‘didn’t forget,’ avenges loss to UNLV

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — UNLV was warming up about 45 minutes before Tuesday's game as if preparing for a preseason exhibition.

Maybe that's because the Rebels' previous meeting with Air Force, just one month prior at the Thomas & Mack Center, felt like a glorified scrimmage.

But the Falcons got UNLV's attention, and the Rebels — sloppy for most of the night — finally got serious.

The tone had been set, however, and the Falcons made the plays down the stretch to hand the Rebels the stench of a 79-74 defeat in a basketball season that already stunk.

Air Force (13-14, 4-10 Mountain West) avenged its 100-64 loss to the Rebels (15-12, 6-8), and the Falcons weren't all that pleased UNLV kept two starters in at the end of that game.

"I haven't forgotten," Air Force coach Dave Pilipovich said of that loss. "Every dog has his day. I've been in this business for 30 years. I didn't forget; our team didn't forget."

As much as it was a night for the Falcons to celebrate in the rematch, the Rebels left Clune Arena with their worst loss of the season.

UNLV, which next hosts UNR on Saturday, played as if its season was going nowhere, and at seventh in the conference, the Rebels almost certainly will be stuck playing on the Wednesday of the Mountain West tournament next month rather than receive a bye into the quarterfinals.

Going to Air Force is often a tough trip for the Rebels, who had to endure a rocky flight into windy Colorado Springs, Colorado, on a 31-seat plane. They now have lost three of their past four games at Air Force.

UNLV forgot to bring its defense on the trip. Even early in the game when the Rebels were ahead 25-16, the lead was due more to Air Force missing open shots than anything UNLV was doing defensively.

Air Force finally stopped missing those shots, going on a 19-4 run to go up 35-29. The Falcons went into halftime ahead 35-31, their first lead at the break since the conference opener against San Jose State on Jan. 2.

But when the Falcons have led at the half this season, they've been difficult to beat and now are 7-1 in such situations.

Air Force led 57-56 before going on a 10-point run to temporarily seize control with 6:08 left. UNLV fought back, eventually closing to 73-72 on Jerome Seagears' 3-pointer with 56 seconds left.

But then C.J. Siples threw a back-door pass for Frank Toohey for a layup with 37 seconds remaining, and the Falcons led by three points. Zach Kocur's two free throws to extend the lead to 77-72 with 19.7 seconds left effectively put away the game.

Air Force won with Hayden Graham, who entered the game averaging 14.3 points, being held to four points. It was a collective effort, with Jacob Van scoring 21 points, Kocur 19, Siples 17 and Toohey 14.

"After what happened at their place, we really felt we didn't play our best basketball," Air Force center Zach Moer said. "We just really fought our butts off tonight."

UNLV interim coach Todd Simon said he liked the effort from his players, whose greatest success on this night was running out the clock on the media and remaining in their locker room long enough to avoid postgame interviews.

The players' body language said enough, even if Simon begged to differ.

"It's different here, and we're a different team," Simon said. "It was really two different teams playing each other today."

UNLV actually shot well, making 45.3 percent that included 40.7 percent from 3-point range. Patrick McCaw and Jalen Poyser each finished with 15 points, and Dwayne Morgan scored 13.

But there was little good to say about this defeat, and little wonder no UNLV players were in a rush to talk about it.

"The guys know exactly what we need to do to fix it," Simon said.

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65