Healthy Victor Iwuakor makes presence felt for Rebels

UNLV junior Victor Iwuakor wasn’t expecting the pass.

“I didn’t know Bryce (Hamilton) was going to throw it. I was just running,” he said. “My teammates were surprised. They’ve never seen me dunk like that.”

With UNLV leading Colorado State 67-46 with three minutes remaining, Hamilton led a fast break and lobbed a pass over defenders to Iwuakor.

Fully extended, Iwuakor grabbed the ball with both hands before finishing an alley-oop with a thunderous dunk. Hamilton was celebrating before the junior caught the ball, while the UNLV bench waved towels in excitement.

Even Iwuakor was shocked. “I surprised myself a little bit,” he said.

The alley-oop was the exclamation point for one of UNLV’s best performances of the season, a 72-51 victory Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

While Iwuakor’s dunk was worthy of an ESPN highlight, coach Kevin Kruger said his defense was the key to the Rebels’ fifth win in seven games

“There’s not many guys that think about their teammates, helping them out defensively, the way Vic does,” Kruger said.

Iwuakor, Royce Hamm Jr. and David Muoka were tasked with guarding Colorado State standout David Roddy, and they held the Rams’ leading scorer to 11 points on 4-for-14 shooting, his lowest total in Mountain West games. Iwuakor also had two blocks and two steals to go with four points and a rebound in 17 minutes.

“Coach just told us to do the same thing we did at their home — be physical with him and beat him to the spot,” Iwuakor said.

Iwuakor’s first season at UNLV after transferring from Oklahoma has been full of starts and stops. He didn’t play until Jan. 8 because of a shoulder injury, then aggravated it in his first game and didn’t play again until the end of the month.

Healthy at the start of the Mountain West season, Iwuakor forced his way into the starting lineup, but tweaked the injury again Feb. 5 against Utah State.

Kruger said Iwuakor’s athleticism and defensive positioning have made him one of UNLV’s go-to low post defenders when he’s healthy.

“He’s done a really good job,” Kruger said. “Guarding Roddy with a shoulder injury probably doesn’t sound like a whole ton of fun, but he did a great job.”

UNLV (15-11, 8-6) will need Iwuakor’s defense for Tuesday’s game at intrastate rival UNR (12-13, 6-8). The Rebels defeated the Wolf Pack 69-58 on Feb. 1 and can sweep the season series for the first time since the 2014-15 season.

Contact reporter Andy Yamashita at ayamashita@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ANYamashita on Twitter.