Good news on UNLV freshman McCaw could go a long way

A 60-58 home loss Wednesday night to San Diego State assured UNLV would be in action on the opening day of the Mountain West tournament and need to win four games in four days to earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The team now awaits news Thursday morning that could go a long way toward determining whether the Rebels have any chance of accomplishing that difficult feat.

Freshman guard Patrick McCaw took a shot to the nose — the apparent result of a collision with Chris Wood — during the second half and didn’t return to the game.

UNLV coach Dave Rice said McCaw was suffering from “concussion-like symptoms” and would be re-evaluated on Thursday morning.

“I don’t know the exact concussion protocol,” Rice said. “I do know that I was told he wasn’t able to play again tonight.”

If McCaw did indeed suffer a concussion, he would almost certainly miss Saturday’s game at San Jose State. It could also leave his status for the conference tournament in doubt.

The Rebels, already without leading scorer Rashad Vaughn with a knee injury, got a taste of what life without McCaw might look like down the stretch on Wednesday.

“He’s such a great player,” senior point guard Cody Doolin said of McCaw. “We really missed him out there. We had a stretch where we couldn’t score and he can score the tough baskets.”

McCaw is also a valuable asset on the defensive end of the floor. The biggest problem for UNLV is that the roster is already very thin.

There is still hope Vaughn can return for the postseason, but it is far from a certainty.

Rice said Wednesday night Vaughn’s surgery went well and he is walking around and participating in shooting practice. The coach offered no timetable for a potential return, though.

Reserve guard Dantley Walker also went down with an injury a few weeks back, so the potential loss of McCaw could leave UNLV with just six scholarship players.

“Whoever we have on Saturday at San Jose State, we’ll take that group and go in there and play hard and play together,” Rice said.

On a positive note, Rice said Chris Wood was “fine” after suffering what appeared to be a finger injury after a slam dunk in the second half.

The Rebels also showed a great deal of fight despite the limited roster down the stretch. UNLV was in a position to win in the final 1:30, only to suffer through a pair of bad possessions that enabled San Diego State to escape with the victory.

Doolin said the result was encouraging.

“We’ve had to battle through some adversity. We were down to six scholarship players and played a former top 25 team and arguably the top team in our conference and we went right down to the wire,” he said. “We have nothing to hang our heads about.”

Some good news about McCaw on Thursday morning could go a long way to keeping their collective chins up.