Rebels going for rare regular season sweep of BYU

UNLV can accomplish something that has been done just one time in school history with a victory over BYU on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Runnin’ Rebels (19-7, 7-5), who rallied for a rare 76-70 win over the Cougars (20-5, 8-3) at the Marriott Center on Jan. 21, have only swept the regular season series with BYU once and never in the 10-year history of the Mountain West Conference.

UNLV beat the Cougars twice in 1998 in the final year of the WAC, 76-63 at the Thomas & Mack and 84-76 in Provo. That was Steve Cleveland’s first year as head coach for the Cougars who finished just 9-21 that season and were coming off a dreadful 1-25 record a year earlier under Roger Reid.

Extra motivation for Lon Kruger’s squad? Not according to senior guard Rene Rougeau.

“We’re not worried about that at all,” Rougeau said after practice on Friday morning. “We’ve just got to win a game. It doesn’t matter who it is.”

Especially after a disappointing 77-68 road loss at Wyoming on Wednesday night. A regular season series sweep of BYU certainly wouldn’t hurt UNLV’s chances at attracting an NCAA at-large berth if it fails to claim its third straight Mountain West Conference Tournament title.

“A win is a win right now,” Rougeau said. “We’re not looking into anything like (the sweep). More than anything, it’s home court advantage. We know that we’ve really got to protect our home court and give the crowd something to cheer about and that’s what we’re focusing on doing.”

UNLV leads the all-time series, 15-13, and has won four of the last five meetings.