Thursday, January 5, 2012

Second half reigns supreme, the Rebels beat CSU Bakersfield 89-57


    

3 Minutes of Recap:



UNLV is shaping up to be a team that has really great second halves, but I wouldn’t call them a ‘second half team’. The Rebels tend to play well enough to be at least even with, or in front of the competiton in the first half, then come out of the locker room and go on a series of runs to put the game out of reach. There are many ways to win a basketball game – and this way is working just fine.

The now 16-2 Rebels came into Bakersfield to play the Roadrunners on the road because there was a gaping hole in the schedule between New Years’ and the start of conference play. The Roadrunners have an athletic team coached by an extremely smart coach, a former Naismith coach of the year for that matter. But, they are also a team who is struggling at now 7-9.

The Rebels started out slow and and the game went back and forth until 3-4 minutes had elapsed. From that point forward, the Rebels slowly built a respectable lead that they held throughout the first half and ballooned and floated between 5 and 11 points (normally about a 7 point lead) until halftime. The Rebels lead was 11 at the half, 38-27.

As can be gleaned by the final score, the Rebels put up a lot of their offense after the break. They scored 51 second half points, compared to CSU Bakersfield’s 30. Obviously, you get to 51 points by putting the ball in the basket, but what got the Rebels to that figure was rebounding. The Rebels had an amazing 17 offensive rebounds of their total 43. What many of us heard of the radio went something like this, “Stanback shoots from three, it rims out, but Lopez is there to tip in and clean it up”. In fact, Carlos Lopez had 6 of those offensive rebounds, starting in place of the injured Brice Massamba. The game became garbage time early in the second half, as the Rebels went on a 16-2 run and extended from there for the rest of the game.
Statwise, here’s the box. The numbers speak for themselves.

## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
00 Bellfield, Oscar.... *  5-8    1-4    2-2    0  0  0   1  13  5  2  0  0  22
03 Marshall, Anthony... *  6-9    0-1    0-1    3  3  6   4  12  1  2  0  1  31
11 Lopez, Carlos....... *  3-4    0-0    1-2    6  0  6   3   7  0  2  1  1  21
22 Stanback, Chace..... *  2-12   2-10   1-2    1  6  7   2   7  3  1  0  2  25
43 Moser, Mike......... *  6-11   1-4    4-4    4  7 11   2  17  1  3  0  1  29
01 Thomas, Quintrell...    2-3    0-0    4-6    1  4  5   3   8  1  0  4  0  20
02 Wallace, Kendall....    1-5    1-5    0-0    0  1  1   0   3  0  0  0  1  13
05 Smith, Reggie.......    0-1    0-0    2-2    1  2  3   1   2  5  0  0  0  13
20 Mashour, Karam......    1-3    0-1    1-2    0  1  1   0   3  1  0  0  0   4
31 Hawkins, Justin.....    6-10   4-7    1-2    1  2  3   2  17  1  1  0  1  22
33 Norman, Wade........    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  0  0  0  0  0+
   TEAM................                         1  4  5
   Totals..............   32-66   9-32  16-23  18 30 48  18  89 18 11  5  7 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 12-27 44.4%   2nd Half: 20-39 51.3%   Game: 48.5%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  3-11 27.3%   2nd Half:  6-21 28.6%   Game: 28.1%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 11-15 73.3%   2nd Half:  5-8  62.5%   Game: 69.6%    4
Credit to UNLVREBELS.com

Highlights are obviously Moser and Hawkins with 17 a piece, Moser also getting 11 rebounds. 5 assists each for Bellfield and Smith (0 turnovers for Smith). Quintrell Thomas was fantastic with 4 blocks and 8 points.

Karam Mashour had, what I’ve only heard, was a fantastic dunk from way out – posterizing 6’10” 300 lb center Andre Jackson. Hopefully footage of that makes it to Youtube.

Fantastic end to the non-conference season for the Rebels. Now a lot of time to rest injuries, and prepare for what will be an extremely tough game at San Diego State.

The Rebel Reign MVP category will now be known and Reign Man, or Men if there is multiple MVPS. Tonight’s Reign Men are Mike Moser and Justin Hawkins, great  job!

GO Rebels! Great job to all the fans who made the trip and were lound enough to be heard over the Radio. 

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