Jones helps Rebels to 93-73 win over Chaminade — PHOTOS

LAHAINA, Hawaii - Long before Derrick Jones Jr. staged a one-man dunk contest, UNLV was a beleaguered basketball team on upset alert. Its trip to paradise was turning into a nightmare.

Chaminade, a Division II crew from Honolulu that came in as a 22-point underdog, stormed into halftime with a four-point lead.

"The coaches just told us we've got to be more aggressive and lock down on defense," Jones said. "So we all went out and we all played aggressive. If the coaches came in the locker room and they were fired up, they had a reason to be. They just came in and got us fired up, too."

Jones torched the Silverswords, scoring 22 of his career-high 26 points after the half to lift the Rebels to a 93-73 win Tuesday afternoon in the Maui Invitational. The freshman forward found help from sophomore guard Patrick McCaw, who poured in 17 of his career-high 25 points in the second half.

The halftime speech from UNLV coach Dave Rice was not exactly a Bob Knight-like emotional tirade, but it was effective.

"I think it would be easy going into the locker room and making it all about getting a pound of flesh," Rice said. "But confidence is a shaky thing. When you've got a group that came in, prepared hard and played extremely hard (Monday) night and had things not quite go our way down the stretch and lost a game, there is a fine line between going in and blasting them and giving them confidence.

"So at halftime, no doubt we got after them, and I got after them pretty good. But it was more about planning an attack and giving them confidence that we can go do this together."

The Rebels (4-1) face 13th-ranked Indiana (4-1) in the fifth-place game at 2 p.m. PT Wednesday. The winning side salvages the trip here. For the losers, it will be a long flight home. The Hoosiers, upset by Wake Forest on Monday, also survived a hangover and defeated St. John's 83-73.

A two-point loss to UCLA in the opening round left UNLV in a letdown spot against Chaminade. Predictably flat, the Rebels were lackadaisical on defense, missed an alarming number of free throws and 3-pointers and exhibited an overall lack of energy.

The Silverswords were sticking it to the Rebels early. Oscar Pedroso knocked down an open 3 to give Chaminade a 15-7 lead 7½ minutes into the game. UNLV finally grabbed its first lead, 29-28, on Ike Nwamu's layup with 3:23 to play.

With a 37-33 advantage at the break, the Silverswords were eyeing an enormous upset. A buzz swept through the crowd in the half-full Lahaina Civic Center. Seven-foot freshman Stephen Zimmerman Jr., the Rebels' version of Ralph Sampson, was in street clothes on the bench and out with an illness.

"We were pretty confident that we had a chance to come out and win in the second half," said Chaminade guard Dantley Walker, the former Lincoln County High School star who transferred from UNLV last summer.

Order was restored after the half. The Silverswords, off a 51-point loss to Kansas, eventually realized they were no match for the bigger, far more athletic Rebels.

Jones and McCaw fueled a 21-4 run. After a 3-pointer by Jones and a steal and dunk by McCaw, Jones' layup put UNLV up 54-43 with 12:43 remaining.

"We have to fight through adversity and bounce back," said McCaw, who scored 20 points or more for the third consecutive game. "I know we came out a little slow. We had to fight through the aches and pains."

Jones finished with five dunks, three in the second half. Of his 12 field goals, 11 were dunks and layups.

"I'm sure the dunk that Kevin Jones threw down might have woke them up a little bit," Chaminade coach Eric Bovaird said, before correcting himself. "Derrick Jones is his name."

In a 60-point second half, the Rebels defended dribble penetration better, forced turnovers and ran in transition. Senior point guard Jerome Seagears stopped launching erratic long-range jumpers and started running the offense. Ben Carter and Dwayne Morgan crashed the boards and dominated in the paint.

Rohndell Goodwin finished with 18 points - only two after halftime - for the Silverswords (0-4). Reality set in for Walker, who shot 0-for-4 from the field and went scoreless in 16 minutes.

Aside from dunks and layups, UNLV shot poorly from the free-throw line (15 of 30) and 3-point line (4 of 16), so there still is a lot of improvement for the Rebels to make with the Hoosiers waiting in a crucial, resume-building game for both teams.

Rice said Zimmerman is probable to play against Indiana.

"Our team was really down after (losing to UCLA)," Rice said. "I think that's probably human nature. It's one of the things that's tough about that quick bounce-back after you have a tough loss. But we regrouped at halftime. I thought the guys really responded.

"Everything we've got an opportunity to achieve this year is still there."

Contact reporter Matt Youmans at myoumans@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2907. Follow him on Twitter: @mattyoumans247