UNLV trails at BYU

The Rebels played an awful stretch of defense in the middle of the first half, allowing Brigham Young to get off just about any shot it wanted.

It led to the Cougars opening a lead as big as 15 points.

UNLV battled back a bit, but BYU responded and lead 43-30 at the break after Jimmer Fredette hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the Cougars.

Fredette had 15 points in the first half to lead all scorers.

Bishop Gorman alum Jonathan Tavernari added 11 points and Lee Cummard had 10 for BYU. Tavernari also had nine rebounds.

For the Rebels, Tre’Von Willis had nine points and Wink Adams scored eight.

UNLV hit just 2 of 9 from behind the arc and got outscored 24-8 in the paint. The Rebels were also out-rebounded 21-12 in the first half.

It will be a real challenge to get back into the game in Provo where BYU is just so good.

MARRIOTT CENTER CROWD — The fans here are loud and the attendance numbers will still look good, but the turnout tonight is very disappointing.

Again, the student section is a mass of human beings that make a lot of noise and it encompasses a large portion of the arena.

But the remainder of the building contains a great deal of empty seats.

It must be noted that the capacity is well over 22,000, so filling it is not easy. Still, this is the kind of matchup that should enable the Cougars to fill up the joint.

SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT — The officials whistled Jimmer Fredette for palming the ball about six minutes into the first half.

It was very unfair to the sophomore guard.

He commits the infraction just about every time he touches the ball. If he were not able to get away with the illegal move, he would be a very limited player at this level.

However, if you allow him to do it six times in the opening minutes of the half, how can you justify calling it on him on the seventh time?

Players need to know what is allowable and what is not.

WHY EVEN PLAY THE GAME? — There is really no need for these two teams to play each other in the regular season.

Tonight’s game is far from over, but for much of the first half, BYU gave every indication that it was ready to turn the game into a blowout.

It has the potential to be such a great rivalry, but both teams are so good on their home floor that they just don’t play competitive games against each other.

The series is such right now that the home team is going to blow out the visitors fairly consistently.

Perhaps, the Mountain West Conference should let BYU and UNLV each schedule two additional non-conference games and just wait for the championship game of the Mountain West Conference tournament to play each other.

Of course, it would have to be played at a neutral site.

HALFTIME ENTERTAINMENT — Two BYU students competed in a karaoke contest at halftime.

It was not pretty.

The students, who just happened to be a married couple. Each had about 15 seconds to sing “The Twist.”

The wife went first and was soundly booed as she could not come close to singing along even with the words on a sheet of paper right in front of her.

The husband didn’t fare much better. He was just as poor at belting out the tune, but got the crowd back on his side with an exaggerated version of the dance that may have been worse than his singing.

I guess this is what passes for entertainment here in Provo.