Rebels not smiling despite win in nonconference finale — PHOTOS
The UNLV men’s basketball team closed its nonconference schedule with a victory, but the Rebels’ postgame energy was far from celebratory.
Following the 66-53 win for UNLV (6-5) against UC Riverside (8-5) on Saturday at the Thomas and Mack Center, there were no smiles or high-fives during the postgame press conference.
Dedan Thomas Jr. and forward Jeremiah “Bear” Cherry scored 15 and 12 points, respectively, as the only Rebels in double figures. When they faced reporters, even questions about the holidays didn’t draw a single grin.
Coach Kevin Kruger, seemingly responding to the dejected energy, noted that the Rebels’ early difficulties should prove beneficial.
UNLV next hosts Fresno State on Dec. 28 to open Mountain West play.
“We’ve got losses to teams that I believe if the season ended, it ended today, they’d all be in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “Of course, it kind of hurts your confidence, and you want to get a rhythm. … At the same time, there’s nothing to hang our heads about right now.”
Aside from blowout defeats against Mississippi State and Creighton, losses to (now No. 21) Memphis, Northwestern and most recently No. 22 Dayton were by an average margin of four points.
When asked how he’d characterize the season to date, Thomas answered, “A lot of learning.”
That said, the sophomore guard attempted to provide a positive spin.
“We had a really hard nonconference schedule,” he said. “I feel like we’ve learned a lot about ourselves. But we feel, as a team, very confident going into (conference) play.”
3-point crisis averted
The Rebels still hold the longest active streak in the NCAA of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer (1,238).
But UNLV was 0-for-10 from the 3-point line in the first half. Jalen Hill scored the Rebels’ first 3 of the game five minutes into the second half, and the team finished 3-for-19 from deep.
There were six lead changes until early in the second half. UNLV pulled away with eight minutes left to play, with Jailen Bedford making a fast-break layup to increase the lead to 55-43. That forced UC Riverside coach Mike Magpayo to call a timeout, as UNLV was on a 10-0 run over a three-minute span.
Barrington Hargress had a game-high 17 points for the Highlanders.
Rebounding
Although UNLV outscored the Highlanders 40-20 in the paint, the Rebels had another tough day on the boards.
UNLV allowed 23 offensive rebounds while only coming down with 14, giving away 18 second-chance points.
“Obviously the word’s out that that we don’t rebound very well, and so we’ve got to focus on that as much as we possibly can,” Kruger said. “If we have any chance of having a great conference season, we got to be way more physical, and we just got to do a much better job finishing defensive possessions with rebounds.”
Cherry is the team’s leading rebounding (6.1), but he recorded just four Saturday.
The 6-foot-11-inch junior said he broke his finger during the Rebels’ 83-65 loss to Creighton on Dec. 7 and has been playing with the injury since.
“I try and tell them, ‘I can’t be the only guy trying to get the rebound when their whole team is coming,’ so they understand,” he said, “It really is a big part of what we need to do.”
Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.