Nevill makes a very big impact in Utah’s 70-60 win over Rebels

SALT LAKE CITY — Don’t give the Mountain West Conference regular season championship trophy to the Utah Utes (20-7, 11-2) quite yet after Wednesday night’s 70-60 victory over UNLV.

Not with back-to-back road games at BYU (20-7, 9-4) and New Mexico (18-10, 9-4) on the immediate horizon before a season-ending home date with TCU (14-14, 5-9). But things definitely look pretty promising for Jim Boylen’s squad.

However, they look even better for Utah’s 7-foot-2 senior center Luke Nevill, who seems like a cinch to claim the MWC Player of the Year Award before heading off to the big riches of the NBA.

Simply put mate, the big Aussie from Perth had the biggest impact in Wednesday night’s game, and it went well beyond his 11th double-double (19 points, 13 rebounds) of the season.

Nevill, who has a 7-foot-6 wingspan and also blocked three shots, easily affected close to a dozen more as the Rebels failed to finish a number of easy drives to the basket while shooting just 34.5 percent (20-of-58) from the floor.

Credit Nevill for a lot of that. No doubt the Rebels could feel his big presence over their shoulders as they tried to take it to the hoop on drives only to miss.

“Luke, he stood on the Mountain West sign (in the middle of the key) and took up the whole paint,” UNLV guard Wink Adams, who scored 9 points on just 3-of-12 shooting, said. “You can’t get the shot up. Whenever you go to the basket against Luke you always look for the shooters.”

“I play as hard as I can every game and just try to impact it any way possible,” Nevill, who has won five MWC Player of the Week Awards this season, said. “In the second half I wasn’t able to get the ball (on offense) but I just tried to help out defensively.”

Nevill’s impact goes beyond his shot-blocking. The Rebels had to try and double-team him down in the post where he had a seven-inch advantage on UNLV forward Joe Darger. That freed up Utah’s perimeter shooters for plenty of wide-open 3-point looks and the Utes took advantage, sinking 8-of-14 (57.1 percent).

Utah broke open what had been a pretty even game with an 18-4 run over the final 5:39 of the first half en route to a 38-24 halftime lead. Senior forward Shaun Green and guard Lawrence Borha each nailed two 3-pointers apiece to make the Rebels pay for sagging inside on Nevill.

“They did a good job of going into Luke, and whenever he gets the ball down low … we were all collapsing,” Adams said. “He was passing it back out and those guys were knocking down three’s. That’s how they got their lead on us and in this building it’s tough to come back.”

“Having any 7-footer who is NBA bound is definitely going to affect you,” UNLV forward Rene Rougeau said. “He was definitely the primary object on our scouting report. We tried to do a good job on him. We just have to do a better job on the role players the next time around.

“We would definitely like to play them again.”

Depending on how things shake out in the final 10 days of MWC play, that likely would occur in the semifinals on March 13 at the Thomas & Mack at 6 p.m. With the loss to the Utes, it looks like UNLV is headed to the 4 vs. 5 matchup on March 12 with slumping San Diego State (18-8, 8-5) the likely opponent.

UNLV coach Lon Kruger said he isn’t thinking ahead to the conference tournament or potential matchups for the Rebels.

“Oh no, all we’re thinking about is Air Force,” Kruger said of Wednesday night’s “Senior White Out Night” contest. “Where ever we end up in the tournament, we end up. … There’s still a lot to be determined. I would think we’re probably in (the 4 vs. 5 game). I don’t know who we would be playing at this point.”

One thing is certain. Barring a total collapse, it won’t be Utah.