Up-and-Down Season Ends With A Thud: Frustrated UNLV Loses To Utah State, 80-60, At MWC Tourney Thursday
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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — He’s like a modern Dick Vitale with curly hair, a hyperactive stat-reciter who told everyone yesterday that UNLV beat a team other than Air Force in the Mountain West Conference tournament for the first time in a decade.
Josh Pastner came off equal parts passionate, goofy and basketball lover — and the Josh Pastners are the secret sauce behind March Madness’s hoops craziness. His Runnin’ Rebels squeaked out a 73-70 win over Wyoming Wednesday to win a quarterfinal date with MWC top-seeded Utah State, a team swept by UNLV during the regular season.
But Utah State showed Thursday why it had the league’s best conference record.
The Aggies played stingy defense, limiting UNLV’s two offensive forces — Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Kumani Hamilton — to only two points each in the first half.
And Utah State extended their 37-23 halftime lead to an easy win, rolling to an 80-60 tourney victory over UNLV in front of many Aggie blue fans in the building on the UNLV campus. There were more Utah State fans than UNLV fans at Thomas and Mack for the 12 noon game.
“It was not a good game offensively,” Pastner said of his team that averages 80 points a game. “We settled for a lot of shots” outside the paint, he noted. “We were not as fluid as we needed to be.”
Utah State was ready for UNLV after two regular season losses.
“Our guys were locked in,” Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun said after the game. “Second half we played really well.”
Calhoun: “We were possessed to get this win.”
UNLV was one of those teams that could lose any game but also win four games in four days to punch a ticket to the NCAA’s March Madness tournament. They had a quick-as-a-waterbug, three-point shooting guard in Gibbs-Lawhorn; a shot-blocking phenom, Tyrin Jones, a mere freshman from Las Vegas; a tough, inside scorer in Hamilton; and a triple-double specialist, Howie Fleming, Jr.
There was freshman Isaac “Super John” Williamson, who has a nice three-ball shooting touch, and a scrappy fella from New Zealand named Walter Brown. UNLV had some nice regular season wins like OT triumphs against rival Nevada and Boise State in Idaho.
“It’s going to be a grind of a game,” Pastner said during the game. “You have to be tough and hard-nosed.”
A mere nine days ago, UNLV wiped out Utah State here at Thomas & Mack by 27 points, but the pace — and results — of today’s game were completely different.
Pastner said Utah State was the tougher team today.
UNLV led Utah State, 16-13, in the first half but a Utah State 17-5 run gave the Aggies a 30-21 lead.
Utah State took a 37-23 lead into halftime.
UNLV never made the game competitive in the second half and finished 17-16 on the season.
Pastner said he will be hustling to find players for next year’s squad. He said people who can help with donors or players can email him at joshua.pastner@unlv.edu.
PSA
