Joel Ntambwe scores 31, sparks UNLV past Wyoming, 68-56
Freshman Joel Ntambwe has been emerging as UNLV’s best player, and after Saturday, there no longer can be any doubt.
Ntambwe scored a career-high 31 points and had 10 rebounds to lead the Rebels to a 68-56 victory over Wyoming at the Thomas & Mack Center.
His previous high was a 22-point performance Dec. 15 against Brigham Young at T-Mobile Arena. Ntambwe made 11 of 17 shots against Wyoming, including 3 of 5 from 3-point range.”
“My teammates told me to just keep shooting and keep it simple,” Ntambwe said. “That’s all I did. I went out there and played with confidence. I made pretty much all my shots.”
The Rebels (8-6) are off to their first 2-0 start in the Mountain West since 2006. UNLV heads to New Mexico on Tuesday. The Lobos beat No. 6 UNR 85-58 on Saturday.
Wyoming (4-11, 0-2) has lost seven of nine games.
UNLV took control against the Cowboys with a 16-2 second-half run. That pushed UNLV’s lead to 56-40 with 8:28 left.
The Rebels trailed 32-30 at halftime, but allowed only 24 points in the second half, holding the Cowboys to 33.3 percent shooting. Wyoming’s Justin James scored 13 in the first half but two in the second.
UNLV used double teams against James and also pressed in the second half.
“We wanted to get out and run,” Rebels guard Noah Robotham said. “When you play against a zone, it’s very common to walk the ball up and get the ball in the high post and play slow. But that’s a team that has only seven guys playing right now — one elite player and a lot of guys that kind of fill in the void — so we were trying to speed them up. The last game they shot 40 shots against Boise State (on Wednesday), which is unheard of.”
Wyoming took 49 shots against the Rebels, who didn’t have a great offensive night, either. Ntambwe was the only Rebel in double figures.
This was his seventh consecutive game scoring at least 10 points after failing to reach double digits in his first seven.
“I was struggling at the beginning of the season because I was dealing with an (ankle) injury,” Ntambwe said. “But the more I started playing, I got more comfortable after getting through my injury.”
UNLV coach Marvin Menzies saw Ntambwe’s potential in training camp, immediately inserting the 6-foot-9-inch forward into the starting lineup.
Ntambwe hasn’t left it.
“He’s got such a good feel for the game,” Menzies said. “You can teach a lot of sets and plays, but you’ve got to teach guys how to play. He had a lot of those already in his repertoire. His movement off the ball was really good, and so I thought that he had some instinctive things that he brought to the table, even though he was young that can give us a feel of experience from a younger guy.”
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Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.