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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
They’re trying their best, the UNLV sports marketing folks. They pitched a $5 ticket for the kids for Friday’s UNLV’s men basketball game that saw the Air Force Academy from Colorado Springs, Colorado visit with its old-timey, Princeton-style basketball approach.
So, there were more kids than usual at Thomas & Mack Center tonight, as the five-year-olds munching chicken fingers joined the the Runnin’ Rebels’ greying fan base that broke out their walkers and canes to watch UNLV host Air Force.
It was not exactly textbook basketball. The Runnin’ Rebs fumbled the ball throughout the first half and totaled 12 turnovers — two more than field goals made (10) enroute to piling up 25 points in the first 20 minutes. Air Force was not much better, scoring a single point more for 26 points on 36 percent shooting.
The home team is a basketball program that celebrated a national championship 33 years ago. But tonight the ushers told me they were expecting 4,000 folks to pass through the arena’s turnstiles. Officially, UNLV reported attendance at 5,831.
Frustrated UNLV fans were overheard saying the game was hard to watch and that it seemed like a high school game.
The old-time Las Vegas fans are a jolting contrast to the more affluent Vegas Golden Knights’ attendees who pay some of the most expensive tickets in the National Hockey League and fill up T-Mobile Arena just off the Strip to the tune of about 18,000 fans a game.
The arenas for the Golden Knights and UNLV Runnin’ Rebels about two miles apart each hold about 17,000 people, with the NHL Vegas games playing out as a show in an amenity-filled venue on the Strip and the Rebs games unfolding as a community event in the sturdy warhorse of an arena that accommodates contrasting multi-day events like the NBA Summer League and the National Finals Rodeo. The UNLV hoops games draw fans who are much more diverse than the VGK games.
While the UNLV men’s basketball team has struggled mightily in Mountain West Conference play, the UNLV women’s team has piled up 26 wins in 28 games and has clinched its second straight MWC regular season crown. The woman are ranked in the NCAA Top 25 and it would be intriguing to see how the Lady Rebels would do in the NCAA tournament if they play heavyweights like South Carolina (Aces star A’ja Wilson’s alma mater) or Indiana.
In the end for the Runnin’ Rebels, the Rebs’ Jackie Johnson III stole the ball on an Air Force inbounds pass in the final seconds and Elijah Harkless scored the go-ahead bucket to win the game, 54-53.
Harkless carried the team in the second half, putting in that winning basket and scoring 23 of UNLV’s 54 points.
UNLV’s record stands at 17-11 overall and 6-10 in the conference, while Air Force is now 14-16, including 5-12 in the MWC.