Southern Utah a step down from UNLV’s recent matchups

UNLV is in the midst of perhaps the toughest stretch of regular-season games in the program’s history.

Saturday night’s game is not the reason for that designation.

The Rebels dropped a pseudo-neutral site game at MGM Grand to No. 14 Utah last Saturday before upsetting No. 3 Arizona at home on Tuesday night.

UNLV opens conference play with a trip to one of the Mountain West’s most difficult road atmospheres at Wyoming on Wednesday before wrapping up non-conference play by visiting No. 10 Kansas on Jan. 4.

Then there is Saturday night.

The Rebels get what looks on paper like a break when they host Southern Utah at Thomas & Mack Center at 7 p.m.

It will be the third straight game in Las Vegas for the Thunderbirds (3-7). Southern Utah dropped an overtime game to Arkansas-Pine Bluff before beating South Carolina State in the Las Vegas Classic on Monday and Tuesday.

The Thunderbirds also have wins over Texas-San Antonio and Saint Katherine’s, but have struggled on the road against teams from bigger conferences.

Southern Utah lost by 30 at Kansas State and 13 against a pretty bad Miami-Ohio team. The Thunderbirds also lost by 19 points and Boise State and 16 at Loyola-Chicago.

In short, it’s been a struggle for Nick Robinson’s team. On the positive side, there has been marked improvement from last year’s 2-27 team.

All five starters returned, including Las Vegan Trey Kennedy.

The Bishop Gorman product, last year’s leading scorer, has only started three games as Robinson has mixed and matched lineups.

Kennedy has struggled offensively this season, making just 30 percent of his shots overall and hitting just 1 of 8 from 3-point range.

He is joined by three other Las Vegans on the roster.

Travon Langston and Juwan Major, both from Las Vegas High School, have started games for the Thunderbirds.

Langston is averaging 6.0 points and 2.5 rebounds per game. He also leads the team with 10 steals. Major is scoring 4.5 points and 2.2 rebounds while making 55 percent of his shots from the field.

Sherron Wilson, a freshman from Clark, is averaging 1.8 points in 10 minutes per game.

A.J. Hess and James McGee have been by far the biggest threats offensively for Southern Utah. Both are prolific 3-point shooters, but are fairly one-dimensional offensively.

There isn’t a whole lot for UNLV to be concerned about, but the spot on the schedule leaves the Rebels in prime position for a letdown.

Southern Utah and its full complement of Las Vegans will certainly be looking to capitalize.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.