What the UNLV Rebels said after their loss at San Jose State

SAN JOSE, Calif. — What the UNLV basketball team said following its 76-72 loss at San Jose State:

Coach Marvin Menzies

“They’ve got a big-time player in (Brandon) Clarke, he showed why he’s one of the better players (23 points, 15 rebounds), if not the best in the conference. When they needed him to make plays, he did. He got to the offensive glass and made big shot after big shot. We didn’t have an answer for him. Our young guys couldn’t play him one-on-one, and we tried to double him. He found someone on one of them. On the other, he threw an outlet and made a nice assist to get somebody else.”

“They had guys that aren’t statistically really good 3-point shooters that knocked down some shots today. They had a couple of guys that went 2-for-2 and one guy that was 1-for-2 were guys quickly frankly we would’ve held off of. They beat us. They outplayed us, and they had some contributions off the bench that really made a difference.”

“It was painful, man, painful. Losing is not a thing that I like to experience. We’ve got to find a way to keep fighting. I like the energy. I like the effort. You’re on the road and you’ve got a chance to win the thing in the last three or four minutes. We just didn’t execute down the stretch.”

Guard Zion Morgan

“We’ve got to pull it together before tournament time. I feel like we’re getting better. Our first half today (up 36-27) was better than that Wyoming first half (down 18 points on Wednesday), but we’ve got to start learning how to put two halves together. I don’t think we did that one time this season.”

On getting his first start: “It doesn’t mean anything to me because I know I worked for this. I don’t have a big head or anything like that. I’m cool coming off the bench. I’ll do what I’ve got to do.”

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