College Basketball With UNLV and Main Event Takes Center Stage In Las Vegas Friday
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
It was a night for college basketball in Las Vegas with games at T-Mobile Arena and Thomas & Mack Center about two miles apart Friday.
The hometown UNLV Runnin’ Rebels trailed by three points at halftime at Thomas & Mack Center, but walked off the court at about 9 PM with a 78-68 win over High Point, a private college outside Greensboro, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the Virginia basketball team — trying to emotionally cope with the recent deaths of three Virginia football players — defeated the fifth-ranked Baylor Bears, 86-79, at T-Mobile Arena on the Strip. It was part of the Main Event tournament promoted by college basketball promoter Brooks Downing. Virginia scored 56 points in the second half to seize the win.
Illinois defeated UCLA, 79-70, in the same tourney. Illinois and Virginia will play on Sunday. Illinois scored 51 points in its second half to defeat the UCLA Bruins.
UNLV improved to 4-0 thanks to six players scoring at double-digit points. Elijah Harkless scored 15, Luis Rodriguez and David Muoka each scored 12, Keshon Gilbert and Elijah Parquet each scored 11 and Jackie Johnson III came off the bench to contribute 10 points. The High Point Panthers had four players score 10 or more points, led by Zach Austin and Abdoulaye Thiam as each scored 20.
UNLV distributed 4,589 tickets for the game. It was a smallish crowd that grew loud with chants of “Reb-els, Reb-els, Reb-els” in the final minute.
I could not be prouder of our guys for the fight, especially in the second half. We knew that High Point was an incredibly dangerous team and I thought we did a really good job through stretches, especially to finish those last eight or so minutes of the game. The best lessons we could possibly learn are the ones that we’re gonna take from tonight. When we just did our own thing, they made us pay. We gave up nine points on three different threes, doing things that were very uncharacteristic of us – leaving a shooter to gamble and then take a risk and they made us pay all three times. That was our biggest talking point at halftime – just to do what we’ve been doing. But to finish the game, the guys banded together and did what they needed to do to get good shots and get stops and rebounds. – UNLV head coach Kevin Kruger
Illinois and Virginia will play on Sunday.
