UNLV’s thoughts on its victory over UC Riverside

What the UNLV basketball team said following its 74-62 victory over UC Riverside on Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center:

COACH MARVIN MENZIES

“We have a better feeling than last week (a 76-68 loss to South Alabama), but still a lot to work on. It’s good to get that first win under our belt and learn some lessons and go forward. There were a couple of areas that really jumped out at me. There were too many second-chance points once again. We gave up 19. We’ve got to get better there. We’ve got to get better at sharing the ball consistently.”

“It was good to see some contributions by some different guys. Getting Cheick (Cheickna Dembele) on the court for a few minutes, his foot started to bother him, so we shut him down. Dwayne Morgan (hip) started to get irritated a little bit. But that was expected. We thought there was going to be some soreness. We were instructed there would be some by the doctors, so we had to listen to them and get those guys on the bench, so they didn’t play a large amount of minutes.”

Jovan Mooring is “learning that position. He used to play point guard in high school, but it’s been a few years, so he’s getting it back. He was one of the guys that got up early (Saturday morning) and was in there watching film. Both he and Jalen (Poyser). Those two guys have really bought in. They know they’re not super efficient at the point guard position right now, but collectively together they’ve got to produce a good game for us at that spot. Tonight, if you took their combined stats (eight assists to four turnovers), two-to-one, so pretty good from that point guard position.”

GUARD JALEN POYSER

“I tried to attack their defense and make their defense collapse. There were some plays where they didn’t collapse and they gave me the open layup, and I took it.”

FORWARD CHRISTIAN JONES

“I wouldn’t say pressure (to win). Everybody wanted to win, but if we think of it as pressure, then that’s when the nerves start coming out and people start doing things that they’re not used to doing. I think everybody stayed within the game, listened to the coach, and we did what we had to do and learned from that last game and got that win.”

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