A bittersweet Sunday afternoon for Rene Rougeau

Sunday afternoon began nicely enough for UNLV guard Rene Rougeau when he nudged out good friend Wink Adams for team MVP honors during the team’s awards banquet at Cox Pavilion.

“For sure I was surprised,” the 6-foot-6 senior, a member of the Mountain West Conference all-defensive team as well as a third team all-MWC pick, said of the honor voted on my his teammates. “Wink is my MVP without a doubt. But he was very happy for me.”

Then Rougeau and his teammates settled in to watch the NCAA Tournament Selection show. And even most in the crowd of about 1,000 knew it was a real longshot that the Rebels might land at-large berth, hopes rose a little when Louisville, which lost at home on New Year’s Eve to UNLV, was named the No. 1 overall seed for the tourney and MWC tri-champ Utah landed a little better than expected No. 5 seed.

But in the end, the Mountain West Conference landed only two teams in the Field of 65. BYU, a team the Runnin’ Rebels swept during the regular season, was a No. 8 seed in the West Regional.

“I can’t lie, I did,” Rougeau said of holding out hope until the last team, Temple, was revealed. “I was hoping that maybe the last bracket would come down to it. But that is how it goes sometimes. I even thought that San Diego State had a good shot. All we can do is cheer on Utah and BYU. Hopefully they can make a real good run for our conference and show people that our conference is really underrated.”

Now Rougeau and his teammates are waiting until the NIT bracket is announced at 6 p.m. on ESPNU.

“I’d love to see us, New Mexico and San Diego State all do a lot of damage in the NIT,” Rougeau said.

UPDATE: UNLV plays at Kentucky in the first round on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m on ESPN. The Rebels were the No. 5 seed in the Creighton bracket. The winner of the UNLV-Kentucky game will play the winner of Creighton-Bowling Green.