Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
Wider and wider the door continued swinging open, until, by the end of the day, the view of the promised land was unobstructed.
Thursday was a great day for the UNLV basketball team, and not just for its 83-67 victory against San Diego State in the first round of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.
From early afternoon all the way through the final horn as the clock approached midnight, any and every variable that could benefit the Rebels and their chances of gaining an NCAA tournament bid fell surprisingly into place.
Fellow MWC "bubble" team Wyoming loses to Colorado State and eliminates itself from NCAA tournament consideration.
Conference co-champ Utah wins but looks shaky against Air Force, allowing the Rebels to picture themselves beating the Utes tonight.
And fringe considerations, such as bubble buddy Minnesota losing to Northwestern in the Big Ten tournament, conspire to assist UNLV and put it in this easy to understand position: It has just one more step to take.
A victory against Utah in the conference semifinal should be all that's required for the Rebels to be invited to the NCAA tournament, no matter how Saturday's championship game goes.
Not everyone will agree with this assessment. There are those who think the Rebels have to win the conference tournament to advance.
But, really, everything points to UNLV needing nothing more than a win tonight.
For starters, the Mountain West has the sixth-best conference RPI in the country and rightfully feels as if it should have three teams invited to the NCAA tournament. (The other side of that argument is that the MWC is a small, eight-team league and that gives it a better overall RPI simply because with fewer teams it has fewer teams with losing records.)
If UNLV beats Utah, I think the MWC will get its three teams in the Big Dance. (Utah and BYU are assured of being invited to the NCAA tournament.)
If, for some reason, UNLV does defeat the Utes but loses in the MWC title game and isn't invited to the NCAA tournament, the Mountain West will have sufficient reason to do away with its "Big Monday" contract with ESPN. The league entered into the pact for the national exposure the network brings, but the tradeoff of having to start games at 9 p.m. -- or midnight back East -- will be seen as a fruitless endeavor if it appears as if no one on the other side of the Mississippi -- and especially those who decide NCAA tournament teams -- stays up late enough to watch the games.
The Rebels will be a good test of the value of that ESPN contract. I'd say it's worthless if they win tonight and still aren't selected to participate in March Madness.
But based on how much trouble Utah had with Air Force, UNLV not just could but should handle the Utes. And, if the Rebels do win, it will give them victories against each of the league co-champions and establish them as a hot team at the most important juncture of the season.
UNLV is 20-9 and has won five of its past six games. Its RPI is solid if not spectacular and it is a long way past its worst performance of the season, a 98-73 loss to Southern California more than a month ago. (Too bad that game was on national TV.)
San Diego State offered surprisingly little resistance in succumbing in Thursday's late game, as the Aztecs were perceived to be a serious threat despite of having lost twice in the regular season to the Rebels.
Athletic and feisty, SDSU was reputed to be a handful. Yet the Aztecs were competitive for only the first 15 minutes or so of their most important game of the season, as the Rebels closed the first half with a strong run and a 41-32 lead.
The second half was completely onesided, with the Rebels continually stretching their lead and never in danger of not advancing.
A home-court advantage? Yes, UNLV has one. It is 6-1 in its brief history of Mountain West tournament games and 273-49 at the T&M since the building went up in 1983.
Add one more win to that total tonight and the NCAA tournament committee members will have to take notice.
The door is open and the picture is clear. A win and the Rebels are in.
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