Another Jacobson haunts Rebels

It would be safe to assume that if the UNLV basketball team never encounters another guy from North Dakota named Jacobson, it will be too soon.

In 2004, Fargo's Nick Jacobson curled around a screen and launched a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the vicinity of Lakewood to provide Utah with a 73-70 victory over UNLV in the Mountain West tournament championship game in Denver. That shot knocked the Rebels out of the NCAA Tournament.

On Thursday, Mayville's Ben Jacobson was pacing the sideline when a little guy named Ali Farokhmanesh launched a 3-pointer from the vicinity of Choctaw -- No. 1 Kansas certainly can relate -- to provide Northern Iowa with a 69-66 victory over the Rebels in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Oklahoma City.

Ben Jacobson is the Northern Iowa coach. He and Nick Jacobson are first cousins.

Mayville, N.D., also is the hometown of former Arizona coaching legend Lute Olson. The Rebels don't care much for him, either.

THREE UP

■ GIRLS JUST WANT TO BEAT UCONN: Someone at NCAA headquarters is insisting they have an NCAA Tournament for women despite Connecticut's name already having been engraved on the trophy. That means four Las Vegas high school products are getting to experience some March Madness: Italee Lucas (Centennial) was the top scorer at North Carolina, which lost to Gonzaga on Saturday; Lindy La Rocque (Durango) is a reserve guard for Stanford; and Chelsea Hopkins (Mojave) and Genesis Lightbourne (Faith Lutheran) are backups at Duke and Iowa State, respectively.

■ BRACKET BOOSTERS: Everywhere you turned at The Orleans this weekend there were basketball fans in front of TV sets holding betting slips in one hand and a cold beer in the other. The sports book, the Mardi Gras Ballroom, Brendan's Irish Pub, every lounge, every blackjack table, every Big Al's Oyster Bar had multiple televisions tuned to March Madness and multiple college basketball fans paying rapt attention to them. Multiply that by about 35 major Strip resorts, another dozen or so downtown, nine Buffalo Wild Wings and about 238 PT's Pubs, and it was a pretty productive weekend for the local economy.

■ BELLS FOR SAINT MARY'S: Now the rest of the country has discovered what West Coast Conference basketball fans at the Orleans Arena have been saying for the past two years: That Omar Samhan guy is pretty good.

THREE DOWN

■ CROSSING THE LINE: Regarding the end of Friday's New Mexico State vs. Michigan State game: The referees consistently need to call lane violations on free throws -- and for that matter, when guys step over the baseline when inbounding the ball -- and then maybe other guys would stop doing it at key junctures of the game precluding their teams from possibly busting a bracket. If it's a rule, call it. This also holds for phantom double plays at second base and running stop signs when no one is looking.

■ WING DING: Also, there should be a rule that if Buffalo Wild Wings and Southwest Airlines are going to advertise during every timeout of March Madness, they must have multiple commercials. I've been having nightmares about strobe lights going off and stuff hitting me in the head in overtime and beefy baggage handlers with giant Fs painted on their chests.

■ LORD OF THE BANNER: Observers with a keen eye might have noticed the Mountain West Conference banners for the March Madness party at the Fremont Street Experience had Fresno State and Gonzaga in place of Air Force and Wyoming. Are there secret negotiations about a three-way trade among the MWC, Western Athletic and West Coast conferences? Nope. A Fremont Street Experience official said he couldn't find a vendor that sold Air Force and Wyoming banners.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.