Going with a smaller four-guard lineup appears to be paying off so far for the Runnin’ Rebels who have already made four 3-pointers en route to an early 17-15 lead with 12:55 remaining in the first half.

Good news on the Wink Adams front, too. Adams nailed a long trey at the 14:00 mark, his first points since straining an abdominal muscle against Southern Utah on Dec. 23. The bad news? Wink earlier missed two free throws.

FORT WORTH — An already small starting lineup for UNLV got even smaller today when head coach Lon Kruger decided to replace 6-8 center Darris Santee with 6-4 Tre’Von Willis in a four guard starting lineup.

Willis joins fellow guards Wink Adams, Oscar Bellfield and Rene Rougeau in the lineup. UNLV’s biggest starter once again is 6-7 forward Joe Darger, who played the post for much of last season for the Rebels.

Willis hit an early 3-pointer as UNLV jumped out to an early 8-4 lead.

It was evident very quickly Saturday night that the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels didn’t come out with the same energy and focus as they had three nights earlier in their 56-55 upset of No. 18 Louisville.

The in-your-face defense that was so instrumental in building first half leads of 14-2 and 20-6 in the first half at Freedom Hall seemed to be a step behind against Steve Alford’s Lobos who continually carved the Rebels inside for an amazing 38 points in the paint.

“As much as we tried not to (have a letdown), I guess you couldn’t help it,” senior forward Rene Rougeau said. “We’ll learn from this and all we can do is be thankful at the same time.”

Thankful is a good word to sum up this one.

The Rebels blew numerous chances to put this one away down the stretch, both at the free throw line and out of their offense. And they were plain lucky at the end when the one New Mexico player you didn’t want to attempt a potential game-winning 3-pointer, senior Chad Toppert, not only got off a trey but a wide-open one at that.

Toppert is a career 45.0 percent shooter behind the arc, the second highest percentage in Mountain West Conference history. Yet he came off a Dairese Gary screen to the right of the key with five seconds to go and had such an open look that he appeared to even hesitate and gather himself before firing.

“I was just praying that he wasn’t going to hit that because he was so open,” Rougeau said. “It seemed like the ball was in the air forever once he let it go.”

Toppert’s shot hit the back of the rim and caromed high above the basket before coming down. Lobo forward Tony Danridge then missed an excellent chance at sending the game into overtime when his tip-in rolled on the side of the rim, hit the backboard and finally rolled off as the buzzer sounded.

“I’m just very thankful,” Rougeau said. “That game could have went the other way in a lot of ways. … We’re just happy to come out of here with a win tonight.”

“I think we definitely dodged a bullet,” senior guard Wink Adams said. “I think tonight our defense was definitely off. They got a lot of open shots where they were easily getting to the basket. We don’t usually do that. … We were kind of lackadasical on defense tonight. It was a close game. We’re just happy we won it.”

Adams, still bothered by a strained abdominal muscle that kept him out of Wednesday night’s big win at Louisville, played 18 minutes in this one but failed to score a point, missing all six of his shot attempts. He had two rebounds, three assists and two turnovers.

“The injury affected my a lot,” Adams said. “Pushing off my right leg it really hurts. On defense, whenever I slide to the left, it hurts. I’m still restricted to do a lot of things. Tonight I was just trying to do what I could do. Hopefully day by day it’s getting better. It’s a good thing we have a week off now (before playing at TCU on Jan. 10th).”

UNLV coach Lon Kruger probably summed up the victory best.

“Feel fortunate to come out with a win,” he said.

Bottom line, thought is UNLV is 1-0 in Mountain West Conference play now and 13-2 overall. Ånd has won eight straight games, including the last three with star guard Wink Adams scoring a grand total of zero points.

Things could be a lot worse.

UNLV has won 24 straight home games against Mountain West Conference foes but is clinging to a 54-53 lead with just 3:14 to go.

Tre’Von Willis hit both ends of a one-and-one with 4:11 to go to give UNLV the lead.

Rene Rougeau gave UNLV’s its first lead of the second half with a reverse layup over Ramon Martinez with 9:55 to go and added a free throw when fouled on the play to give UNLV a 46-44 lead. Rougeau followed that up 49 seconds later with an 18-foot jumper to give the Rebels a 48-44 advantage.

The Rebels trailed by as many as five points twice early in the second half before going on a 10-1 run capped by Rougeau’s jumper.

Daniel Faris (16 points) continues to plague the Rebels inside.

Wink Adams still has yet to score in the game,

New Mexico used a 6-0 run to end the first half to take a 32-30 halftime lead over UNLV on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

UNLV, thanks to a DeShawn Mitchell dunk off a nice Tre’Von Willis dish, took a 30-26 lead with 3:11 to go. However, that would prove to be the Rebels’ final points of the half.

After a Chad Toppert rebound basket and a Tony Danridge drive tied the game, 30-30, senior center Daniel Faris put the Lobos ahead with a dunk off a nice pass from guard Nate Garth with 53.5 seconds left.

Faris led all scorers with 10 points and also grabbed three rebounds.

UNLV played much of the first half without starters Rene Rougeau and Oscar Bellfield who both picked up two quick fouls.

Guard Wink Adams, who sat out the team’s big 56-55 win at Louisville on New Year’s Eve with a pulled abdominal muscle, played nine minutes but did not score. Adams was 0-for-4 from the floor, including 0-for-2 from 3-point range, and had two turnovers.

Willis led the Rebels in scoring with six points while senior forward Joe Darger grabbed a game-high seven rebounds. The Rebels shot just 33.3 percent (10-of-30) from the floor and have been outscored, 24-10, in the paint.

DeShawn Mitchell’s tip of a Kendall Wallace miss broke a 26-26 tie and gave UNLV a 28-26 lead with 3:39 remaining in the first half.

Wallace led a 13-6 UNLV run with five straight points including a 3-pointer.

Wink Adams is back in the game after playing five minutes and scoring zero points (0-for-2) and turning the ball over twice.

Wink Adams made his return from a strained abdominal muscle at the 12:25 mark of the first half of Saturday night’s Mountain West Conference opener with New Mexico. Adams received a nice ovation from the crowd of about 15,000 when he replaced Rene Rougeau, who picked up his second foul of the game.

The bad news is the Rebels were trailing, 17-13, when Adams entered. He promptly turned the ball over on his first possession.

New Mexico’s unsung 6-9 center Daniel Faris had eight points to lead the Lobos.

UNLV head coach Lon Kruger said senior guard Wink Adams will play in Saturday’s Mountain West Conference opener against New Mexico at the Thomas & Mack Center but will not start.

Adams, who sat out Wednesday night’s huge 56-55 upset of Louisville while still recovering from a pulled abdominal muscle, on Friday took part and completed his first full practice with the Rebels since suffering the injury in the first half of a Dec. 23 victory over Southern Utah.

“He won’t start in there but we’ll get him in there early and see how he feels,” Kruger said. “Based on that we’ll determine how many minutes he plays. … He won’t be able to go for long stretches. He looked good in practice today. He wasn’t quite exploding at full speed but still it was a big step.”

Adams, the preseason co-Mountain West Conference player of the year, averages a team-high 14.1 points per game.

“I’m going to play but I’m just not going to play for a long time,” Adams said. “I’m going to play at the first part of the game, and if I need to play, I’ll play for more minutes. Right now the plan is to put me in for a few minutes and see how I feel.”

Adams said he did still feel some pain during the two-hour workout.

“Certain things like sliding (his feet on defense) and jumping up for layups, that kind of brought pain,” he said. “It just comes and goes, though. … I know in the morning I’ll probably be a little sore because this is probably the first time I went hard since the Southern Utah game. We’ll just see how it feels in the morning.”

LOUISVILLE — Until the final 44 seconds here on New Year’s Eve night, there wasn’t much for UNLV freshman guard Oscar Bellfield to celebrate about.

Bellfield, who had committed a total of just two turnovers in his previous two games against Arizona and Southern Utah, appeared to be rattled by Louisville’s trapping defense and had six turnovers.

He more than made up for it in crunch time, however.

It was Bellfield along with help from Mo Rutledge who came up with a huge steal of Cardinal guard Andre McGee with 44 seconds to go as No. 19 Louisville was trying to go in for the kill and pad a 55-54 lead.

Then with the sellout crowd of 19,314 at Freedom Hall on its feet and screaming, the true freshman came off a high screen and found himself face-to-face with 6-foot-9 Cardinal center Samardo Samuels.

That would be the same Samardo Samuels who was USA Today’s national prep player of the year last spring. Rebel Nation recruiting guru Bob Gibbons ranked the big man the No. 2 prep prospect in the nation.

It was the perfect matchup for the Rebels … and no doubt the reason why UNLV head coach Lon Kruger shunned using his final timeout of the game. No need to give Louisville head coach Rick Pitino a chance to set up his defense and sub in a smaller and more athletic player for Samuels as he had earlier down the stretch.

Bellfield squared up and faced the basket near the free throw line, then drove the right side of the key before lofting a tough six-footer over the long arms of Samuel that banked in to give UNLV a 56-55 lead with 16.1 seconds to go. That proved to the game-winner as Cardinal forward Terrance Williams missed a similar drive to the hoop with two seconds left that would have put Louisville back in front.

Bellfield said it was his first game-winning basket since middle school.

“I was thinking that some way I have to get the ball up and get around him,” Bellfield said. “But he played real good defense on me. I just had to leap a little higher to get over him, and get the shoot a little higher off the backboard so it would go in.”

Bellfield said there was no thought of settling for a jumper in the situation.

“I was planning on going to the rack,” he said. “That was the main thing … to go to the rack. I wasn’t going to pull up. I had a big man guarding me, kind of a mismatch basically, but he did a really good job of defending me at the end. I just really focused on the basket.

“I think this (game-winning shot) beats all of them I’ve had. This was real great. Only in middle school I remember (hitting a game-winner).  At the buzzer. Just like this one.”

Well, there still were 16.1 seconds left, but we get the point.

“This beats that one by 10 times … 20 times,” Bellfield said with a smile.

Senior guard Rene Rougeau, who finished with a team-high 17 points and 7 rebounds and also blocked three shots, called the victory one of the two biggest of his UNLV career along with last year’s Mountain West Tournament championship game victory over BYU.

“That was probably the loudest atmosphere I’ve every played in in my life,” Rougeau said. “I’m just speechless right now. I can’t wait to watch (ESPN’s) SportsCenter tonight.”

And the Rebels did it all without star guard Wink Adams, who took part in warm-ups but never left the bench. The good news is that UNLV head coach Lon Kruger expects Adams to be ready to go for Saturday night’s big Mountain West Conference opener against New Mexico.

“It’s big,” Rougeau said. “This win was definitely for Wink without a doubt. We wish he could have been there to play with us. He wanted to be out there very badly. Everyone just played really hard. I kind had a feeling that they might take us for granted seeing that Wink wasn’t going to be playing. And we definitely used that to our advantage tonight.”

“Obviously really proud of the guys,” Kruger said. “I thought it was a great atmosphere and a great environment. … I know Oscar had six turnovers but I thought he really battled their pressure well all night. I thought he really grew up a lot tonight.”

Especially in those final 44 seconds.

LOUISVILLE — Freshman guard Oscar Bellfield’s driving basket with 16.1 seconds remaining gave UNLV a 56-55 upset of No. 19 Louisville on Wednesday night at Freedom Hall.

UNLV, playing without guard Wink Adams, led by as many as 15 points in the first half and nine in the second half before Louisville rallied to take a 55-53 lead on two Terrance Williams free throws with 1:44 to go.

The Rebels cut the Cardinal lead to one, 55-54, on a Tre’Von Willis free throw with 1:17 left, then regained possession on a Mo Rutledge steal on guard Andre McGee’s drive with 44 seconds left.

That set the stage for Bellfield’s game-winning drive over 2008 USA Today national high school player of the year Samardo Samuels with 16.1 seconds to go.

After a timeout, Williams tried to win the game with a drive to the basket with two seconds left but came up short. Joe Darger grabbed the rebound and heaved it downcourt as the buzzer sounded touching off a wild Rebel celebration.

LOUISVILLE – Louisville, which didn’t make a field goal for almost 9 minutes to start the game, hits back-to-back 3-pointers by guards Tony McGee and Preston Knowles to cut UNLV’s lead to one, 47-46, with 5:01 remaining.

The Rebels have not scored a field goal in over 8 1/2 minutes since center Brice Massamba’s layup. However, UNLV has maintained the lead thanks to some clutch free throw shooting by guard Tre’Von Willis who sank both ends of three straight one-and-ones.

Cards hold a 36-22 rebounding edge.

LOUISVILLE — Earl Clark cuts UNLV’s lead to five, 43-38, with 7:28 to go.

Despite a lot of ticky-tack fouls most of the night, things are getting very physical under the basket now.

Louisville gets the ball after the TV timeout after Terrance Williams blocked Tre’Von Willis on a drive to the basket. It appeared Willis was mugged/fouled on the play.

UNLV is getting hammered on the boards, 35-20, by the Cards.

LOUISVILLE – UNLV has seen what was once a 15-point lead trimmed to six points early in the second half but the Rebels still lead, 40-32, with 11:36 remaining.

Backup center Brice Massamba scored on a layup off a nice wraparound pass by Oscar Bellfield to increase UNLV’s lead back up to eight points. Guard Tony McGee’s 3-pointer from the right corner had close Louisville’s deficit to just six points, 38-32.

The bad news continues to be fouls for the Rebels. Massamba quickly picked up two more fouls after his basket and now has four. Starting center Darris Santee also has three fouls as does Rene Rougeau and Tre’Von Willis.

Wink Adams has not left the bench yet.

LOUISVILLE — UNLV continues to maintain its lead at Freedom Hall but the Rebels are once again piling up fouls.

Both Darris Santee and Tre’Von Willis picked up their third fouls and are back on the bench.

Willis, however, hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to put UNLV back up by double-digits, 36-25, after Louisville had closed to within eight on a nice drive by Terrance Williams.