‘Just not enough’: Rebels fall to UNR; Mountain West seed, matchup set
UNLV’s chance to claim a share of the Mountain West men’s basketball regular-season title was wiped out before the Rebels tipped off against UNR on Saturday night.
Just a few minutes before UNLV began its regular-season finale, Utah State defeated New Mexico 87-85 to clinch the Mountain West title outright and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.
The Rebels needed a Utah State loss and win against UNR to get a share of the title. Even if Utah State had lost, the Rebels weren’t able to hold up their end of the title-clinching scenario.
UNLV briefly erased a double-digit deficit midway through the second half, but UNR pulled away to defeat the Rebels 75-65 at Lawlor Events Center in Reno.
“We just got off to a bad start and couldn’t overcome it,” UNLV coach Kevin Kruger said in his postgame radio interview with Learfield Sports. “We made a good run in the second half, but just not enough.”
Fifth-year forward Keylan Boone led UNLV (19-11, 12-6 Mountain West) with 24 points, and freshman point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. added 23 points. The loss snapped the Rebels’ five-game winning streak.
UNLV will be the No. 4 seed in the Mountain West tournament and will play No. 5 San Diego State in a quarterfinal at 2:30 p.m. Thursday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
UNR guard Jarod Lucas scored a game-high 26 points on 50 percent (8-of-16) shooting effort with four 3-pointers. The Wolf Pack (26-6, 13-5), the No. 2 seed in the Mountain West tournament, shot 52.2 percent from the field.
“(Lucas) came out and hit his first shot because he was open, and he was drawing fouls and just had us on our heels,” Kruger said. “We just got too big of a hole early and couldn’t get out of it.”
UNLV trailed the entire first half, but Keylan Boone helped the Rebels erase the deficit. He hit three 3-pointers during a 14-2 run in a four-minute stretch to put the Rebels ahead 48-47 with 11:58 left.
The lead was short-lived, though. UNR went on a 17-4 run over the next six minutes to go back ahead 66-54 with five minutes left. UNLV held UNR to one field goal in the final six minutes, but the Wolf Pack made 11 of 12 free throws down the stretch.
“We got to play tougher,” Kruger said. “We got to get paint touches. It’s the fabric of everything we do. If we want to have a chance to win games, we got to get paint touches.”
UNR started strong, as Lucas scored 10 points in the first five minutes and the Wolf Pack led 15-3. Boone scored 12 points and Thomas had nine in the first half to give the Rebels a spark, but they trailed 39-31 at halftime.
Thomas and Boone “made a lot of good plays, but we just couldn’t get enough stops,” Kruger said. “(Allowing UNR to shoot) 53 percent, it’s not going to win you any games.”
Aside from Thomas and Boone, UNLV wasn’t able to get much more help offensively. No other Rebel scored more than six points.
UNLV shot 35.5 percent (11-of-31) in the second half and made 7 of 24 3-pointers (29.2 percent) for the game.
Guard Kenan Blackshear scored 16 points and added nine assists for UNR.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.