Cold-shooting Rebels at least go down with a fight

LEXINGTON, Ky. — It was a fitting ending to a season of “almosts.”
The UNLV Runnin’ Rebels (21-11), who almost made it three trips to the NCAA Tournament only to come up short because of a late season slide fueled by poor shooting, almost rallied from a 20-point second half deficit before eventually falling 70-60 to the Kentucky Wildcats in their first round National Invitation Tournament game on Tuesday night at famed Memorial Coliseum.
UNLV, behind some inspired bench play by senior Mo Rutledge (10 points, 5 rebounds) and Kendall Wallace (6 points), put together a 19-4 run midway through the second half to cut Kentucky’s lead to just three points, 60-57, with 4:02 remaining.
But thanks to some sloppy ball handling and poor shooting, the Rebels were outscored 10-0 down the stretch before senior guard Rene Rougeau ended the game — and UNLV’s season — with a meaningless 3-pointer with just 16 seconds to go.
Still, considering how badly things were going after 30 minutes, the fact the Rebels didn’t toss in the towel and had the sellout crowd of 8,327 squirming in their seats at the end could at least go down in the category of moral victories for Lon Kruger’s squad.
“It was an opportunity to make one of two choices, and our guys fought like crazy,” Kruger said.
“Give credit to Mo Rutledge and Kendall Wallace,” Rougeau said. “They really came off the bench and gave everyone some fire. Everyone was hustling and getting on the boards. That is how we should have been playing.”
Future NBA guard Jodie Meeks scored six of his game-high 19 points to key the late Kentucky spurt while all-SEC sophomore forward Patrick Patterson added a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
“We cut the lead down to three but we never quite got over the hump,” Kruger said. “We didn’t get the looks we wanted to and they did a good job of converting their free throws like good teams do. Meeks and Patterson are really good players. The more you watch them on film the more you grow to appreciate how hard they work and how tough they are.”
In what became an all-too-familiar pattern during the final two months of the season, UNLV once again dug itself too big of a hole to climb out of thanks to poor markmenship.
The Rebels shot below 40-percent (21-of-54, 38.9 percent) from the floor for the sixth time in seven games and were especially inept en route to a 36-24 halftime deficit.
UNLV, which actually jumped out to an early 9-2 lead, shot just 33.3 percent (10-of-30) from the floor and connected on just 3-of-17 3-pointers (17.6 percent) in the first half. Even worse, the Rebels were a dreadful 1-of-6 (16.7 percent) at the free throw line. UNLV also missed 11 straight treys after Joe Darger connected from behind the arc to give UNLV a 3-2 lead with 17:47 to go.
The Rebels bounced back to sink 7-of-8 foul shots in the second half but finished at just 57.1 percent (8-of-14) for the game.
“The whole season has been up and down,” senior guard Wink Adams, who led the Rebels with 14 points, said. “We have been struggling shooting the ball.”
Still Adams, who finished his career No. 6 on the all-time UNLV career scoring list with 1,875 points, was happy his team scrapped till the bitter end in his final game as a Rebel.
“I’m proud of my team for the way we fought,” Adams said. “We did all we could do to try to win the game. It always feels bad to lose, but at least you know in your heart that you played 100 percent.”