‘We were bad. We were soft’: Rebels suffer blowout loss at Wyoming

Any chance that the UNLV men’s basketball team had to erase a large first-half deficit at Wyoming on Tuesday night was crushed right before halftime.

Wyoming, after allowing three quick UNLV baskets, responded with 13-2 run in a three-minute stretch, which helped give the Cowboys a 22-point halftime lead.

The Rebels couldn’t recover after a disastrous first half and suffered a 98-66 defeat at Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, Wyoming, in their first Mountain West road game of the season.

“We were bad. We were just bad,” UNLV coach Josh Pastner said in his postgame radio interview. “We were bad. We were soft. We were bad. Couldn’t score. We left so many points on the board. (Wyoming) played with desperation, and we played soft, so that’s going to get you beat.”

The loss snapped UNLV’s three-game winning streak. The Rebels were looking to win four in a row for the first time since late in the 2024-25 season. Wyoming had lost its previous three home meetings with UNLV dating to 2021.

Kimani Hamilton led UNLV (7-7, 2-1 Mountain West) with 19 points with six rebounds, and freshman Tyrin Jones added 16 points and eight rebounds. The Rebels never led, shot 38 percent from the field and were 25 of 45 at the free-throw line.

“We missed so many layups,” Pastner said. “The hardest thing to coach is when you can’t score. We couldn’t score. We missed so many shots, so many point blank, just layups and short paint (shots). And then we started getting selfish. We only had five assists. It was bad.”

Leland Walker scored 28 points to lead Wyoming (11-4, 2-2). The Cowboys shot 33 of 60 (55 percent) from the field, outrebounded UNLV 43-29 and had a 46-26 advantage in points in the paint.

“(Wyoming) kicked our butt from the start of the game to finish,” Pastner said. “We couldn’t score, and it just snowballed. We were bad defensively.”

Nothing went right in the first half for UNLV, which trailed 48-26 after the first 20 minutes. In the first half, the Rebels shot 30 percent from the field (6 of 20) and were 11 of 19 from the free-throw line.

Wyoming was 17 of 27 from the field in the first half. An Abou Magassa layup with 12:43 left in the half gave Wyoming a 20-5 lead after UNLV had made just one field goal during the stretch.

The Cowboys extended their lead with strong 3-point shooting (8 of 11 in the first half). Consecutive 3-pointers from Simm-Marten Saadi and Walker put the Cowboys ahead 33-12 with less than eight minutes before halftime.

UNLV finally found a spark after the under eight-minute timeout. Issac Williamson hit a 3-pointer, Hamilton threw down a dunk, and a Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn 3-pointer in over a minute stretch helped the Rebels cut the deficit to 33-20.

Wyoming then pulled away in the final six minutes, which included its 13-2 run, and held UNLV to one made field goal during the stretch.

The Cowboys led by as many as 38 points late in the second half.

UNLV found better consistency shooting the ball in the second half, but the free-throw struggles continued as the Rebels were 14 of 26 at the line in the second half.

Jones converted a 3-point play, and Howie Fleming followed with a steal and dunk to cut Wyoming’s lead to 57-38, but the Cowboys had an answer every time the Rebels tried to string together consecutive positive possessions.

Gibbs-Lawhorn, who was averaging 16.9 points for UNLV, scored 10 but fouled out with five minutes remaining. Emmanuel Stephen also fouled out midway through the second half and didn’t score.

UNLV has another tough road game awaiting Friday against Colorado State.

“Kimani, in the second half, we needed him to be that in the first half,” Pastner said. “We were just bad, and we couldn’t score. We couldn’t stop them. Bad combination. I told our guys we can’t let Wyoming beat us twice because we got a quick turnaround with Colorado State on Friday. We got to clean this up.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.