Game day: No rest for UNLV with Utah State up next in MWC tourney

UNLV Rebels head coach Kevin Kruger applauds a play during the first half of a first round game against the Air Force Falcons in the 2025 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Men's Basketball Championship at Thomas & Mack Center Wednesday, March 12, 2025. Photo by Steve Marcus

Welcome to the Mountain West tournament, UNLV.

Toppling Air Force in the play-in round was nice, but now the real games begin as Kevin Kruger leads his squad into a quarterfinal showdown against No. 3 seed Utah State (Thursday, 8:30 p.m., Thomas & Mack Center).

A loss would end UNLV’s season, so expect the shorthanded Scarlet and Gray to throw everything they have at this matchup — including another potential 40-minute ironman performance from senior Jalen Hill.

Three keys to watch:

Pace picks up

UNLV is down to six healthy rotation players, and the word “healthy” is doing a lot of work in that statement. Against Air Force, Hill needed to go wire-to-wire and the team needed contributions from seldom-used pieces such as junior center Isaiah Cottrell and freshman walk-on DeMarion Yap.

Kruger could get away with running a skeleton crew against Air Force, which plays at an incredibly slow pace (No. 325 in adjusted tempo). Utah State doesn’t operate at breakneck speed in terms of racing up and down the court, but the Aggies do zip the ball around in halfcourt sets, and they will apply pressure on defense, so this game is going to be much more strenuous for UNLV’s thin rotation.

Kruger will use all the usual tricks to keep his players from getting too fatigued, including saving timeouts for rest, but Utah State is going to make it hurt.

“We've got to expect with the minutes the guys have been playing the last two weeks that we're going to see some pressure, and we're going to see some quick rotations from their side,” Kruger said.

Shooting must rebound

UNLV has been in a team-wide shooting slump of late, and Wednesday’s showing against Air Force may have been rock bottom. The Scarlet and Gray hit just 2-of-13 from 3-point range in the first half (with Cottrell and Yap astoundingly accounting for the two makes) and the second half wasn’t much better — Jailen Bedford made 3-of-3, but the rest of the squad was 1-of-5 from deep.

Shooting like that against Utah State will likely result in a blowout loss and the end of the season.

Junior wing Jaden Henley is going to have to step up. He and Bedford are the only volume shooters left, and Henley went 1-of-9 from beyond the arc. Look for him to bounce back, especially considering he was UNLV’s most accurate 3-point shooter this season at 40.2%.

Semis calling?

Everyone knows UNLV hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2013, but the more mind-blowing drought is their decade-long run of early exits in the Mountain West tourney.

The last time UNLV advanced to the semifinals of the league tournament was 2014. That’s a real fact. The 10 seasons since then have seen the Scarlet and Gray knocked out in the quarters or the play-in round, including last year’s overtime loss to San Diego State in the round of eight.

Is this the year they finally score a big win in March and make it to Friday? UNLV split with Utah State in the regular season, so it’s not as if the Aggies are unbeatable. A lot of things will have to break just right — some outside shots going in, some favorable whistles, a couple timely stoppages to allow for rest — but a win today would certainly mean a lot to the program.

Team leaders

UNLV (18-14, 11-9 MWC)

Scoring

D.J. Thomas: 15.6 points

Rebounds

Jeremiah “Bear” Cherry: 5.3 rebounds

Assists

D.J. Thomas: 4.7 assists

Utah State (25-6, 15-5 MWC)

Scoring

Ian Martinez: 16.9 points

Rebounds

Mason Falslev: 6.1 rebounds

Assists

Drake Allen: 4.0 assists

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.