I'll admit, with everything that went on this week, it felt like an NIT home game to start. The train wreck seemed to be getting worse over the course of the week.
But the energy was pretty good in the arena last night. Crowd started out a little soft but when they saw the Rebels came to play, the fans got into it. Our fans really do appreciate effort.
During the Rebel slide of the past two or three weeks, there aren't many who have played well. A good game here, a good game there by a couple of players, but certainly no player consistency. Well, the guards were pretty consistent. Consistently bad. Especially Pat and Jerome. I mean, you should never look at Wyoming and CSU and say, "you know what? The best backcourt is on the other team." Not when one of your own players is an all conference guy who has shown the ability to play big time basketball. But they've been awful.
You can win with bigs struggling. You aren't going to win with guards struggling. It's really simple. Look all around the country. The better the guard play, the better the team.
Zimm didn't finish well, but he was a force that just overmatched the Lobos. Zimm got down and dirty and had a major impact on the game. It was good to see the guards hitting the bigs within the flow of the offense. It just opened up so much more. And Ben just did Ben things which is ok in my book. Offensively, UNLV shot very poorly from deep but still managed to put up the points.
Defensively, I thought the Rebels were really active and aggressive and made the turnover prone Lobos very uncomfortable. Great defensive plan and strong urgency. Stacy does not get enough credit, IMO. He's worked hard to get these guys to maintain focus on the defensive end and it's been a challenge. But when this defense is dialed in, it's pretty good. We saw that last night. So hats off to Stacy. I know it's been a very tough week for everyone, but they bounced back ok.
Now, can they keep the focus moving forward?
It's been everything but basketball around here. It's nice to take a short break from all the other stuff.
But the energy was pretty good in the arena last night. Crowd started out a little soft but when they saw the Rebels came to play, the fans got into it. Our fans really do appreciate effort.
During the Rebel slide of the past two or three weeks, there aren't many who have played well. A good game here, a good game there by a couple of players, but certainly no player consistency. Well, the guards were pretty consistent. Consistently bad. Especially Pat and Jerome. I mean, you should never look at Wyoming and CSU and say, "you know what? The best backcourt is on the other team." Not when one of your own players is an all conference guy who has shown the ability to play big time basketball. But they've been awful.
You can win with bigs struggling. You aren't going to win with guards struggling. It's really simple. Look all around the country. The better the guard play, the better the team.
Zimm didn't finish well, but he was a force that just overmatched the Lobos. Zimm got down and dirty and had a major impact on the game. It was good to see the guards hitting the bigs within the flow of the offense. It just opened up so much more. And Ben just did Ben things which is ok in my book. Offensively, UNLV shot very poorly from deep but still managed to put up the points.
Defensively, I thought the Rebels were really active and aggressive and made the turnover prone Lobos very uncomfortable. Great defensive plan and strong urgency. Stacy does not get enough credit, IMO. He's worked hard to get these guys to maintain focus on the defensive end and it's been a challenge. But when this defense is dialed in, it's pretty good. We saw that last night. So hats off to Stacy. I know it's been a very tough week for everyone, but they bounced back ok.
Now, can they keep the focus moving forward?
It's been everything but basketball around here. It's nice to take a short break from all the other stuff.
