New career-high for Gibbs-Lawhorn propels Rebels past Broncos in second overtime finish of season

UNLV entered the State of Idaho looking for a three-game win streak with a win. It got the win to pick up its third three-game win streak of the season but it didn’t come anywhere near easy for the program.

After losing four straight games, the Runnin’ Rebels earned a third consecutive win when it beat the Boise State Broncos, 86-83, in overtime Friday, Feb. 13 from ExtraMile Arena. With the win, the program secured a regular season sweep of its Mountain West rival in its final year in the conference.

Entering the weekend, Boise State had won six of its last seven games.

Both UNLV and Boise State came into the game with 7-6 Mountain West marks while being tied for sixth in the conference. Now, the former is 13-12 this season with its second meeting of the year against Colorado State coming up.

That contest is slated for Wednesday, Feb. 18 from the Thomas & Mack Center with tip-off set for 8 p.m.

UNLV closed the first half on a 14-4 run to go into halftime down 11 points. Coming out of halftime, the team would trim the deficit to seven points behind continued strong play from junior guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn.

He reached double-figures on his fourth made three of the game. In total, he led all scorers with a new career-high of 36 points.

Gibbs-Lawhorn was at the heart of a 15-0 second half Rebels run in enemy territory that cut the home team’s lead to the smallest possible margin of a single point.

With the team down two points, senior guard Walter Brown was whistled for a flagrant foul. Gibbs-Lawhorn got those points back on an and-one play on the ensuing possession. Soon after, he’d tie the game at 77 apiece on another three-pointer to set a new career-high in points.

“When I get hot [my teammates] find me,” he said. “When I’m going it’s, ‘Give Dra the ball and move out the way.’”

In two games against Boise State this season, the third-year player scored a combined 69 points on 24-of-45 shooting with eight made threes.

“I’m just staying in the gym,” he said. “Eat, sleep, play basketball. There’s really nothing much more to my routine. I stay 20 minutes off campus for a reason because I don’t really want to be around the Strip and all the distractions.”

Senior forward Kimani Hamilton added 13 points on 5-of-8 from the floor while freshman forward Tyrin Jones chipped in with 12 points of his own on 50% from the field to go along with four blocks.

It was just the second overtime game of the season for UNLV, though both have come against Boise State. In addition, both games ended in narrow wins for the former.

To make things more interesting, the Rebels picked up this win after not leading for a single second during regulation.

UNLV went up by four points in overtime behind a 9-0 run on the way to a win where it led for just two minutes and 12 seconds. On the other hand, Boise State led for more than 40 minutes.

In the first half, the Rebels went down by as many as 23 points and at times, things looked very ugly. The Broncos went on a 20-3 run late in the first half, highlighted by a 15-0 spurt that saw the visitors go scoreless for nearly four and a half minutes.

Continuing to be a thorn in Pastner’s side, his UNLV team continued to struggle at the rim early in the eventual win. It missed on its first three layup tries on the night and would go 2-for-6 on layups in the first half while losing the points in the paint battle to its opponent, 14-6, through the first 20 minutes.

The team would rebound to lose the points in the paint margin by just two points.