Poor play down the stretch thwarts UNLV’s chance at resume win inside Viejas Arena

The final Mountain West meeting between bitter rivals UNLV and San Diego State was just as memorable as any other.

Ahead of the Aztecs’ move to the Pac-12, the team beat the Runnin’ Rebels, 89-86, in the finale to the regular season Friday, March 6 from Viejas Arena. As a result, UNLV suffered a sweep in its final shared conference season with SDSU.

Entering the weekend, the Rebels found themselves in a four-way tie for fifth place in the conference standings. Looking to build momentum at the right time, the team had won three of its last four outings before Friday night’s mishap.

“We can’t get to Thursday unless we play really well Wednesday,” head coach Josh Pastner said. “We’re going to play Fresno State or Wyoming based on how things fall. Both teams beat us last time: Wyoming thumped us, Fresno beat us so we have to be mentally ready.”

Ultimately, UNLV ends its regular season with an 11-9 Mountain West mark. In totality, the program holds a 16-15 overall record as it heads into the Mountain West Championships.

The men’s portion of the tournament begins Wednesday, March 11.

“I don’t think this is a one-bid league,” Pastner said. “But because we’ve beat each other up it could end up being a one-bid league.”

Junior guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn was stripped on a last-second three-point attempt with a chance to tie the game at 89 apiece.

“I wanted Dra to go get a quick two,” Pastner said. “I didn’t have a timeout. I also wanted us to foul earlier.”

Just before that, Gibbs-Lawhorn snatched a steal and took it to the other end for a coast-to-coast dunk. He also slammed home a putback dunk late in regulation as well.

In the team’s last outing, he was held to just 10 points on 3-of-8 shooting in under 30 minutes of action.

Following that performance, Gibbs-Lawhorn surpassed his entire scoring output from the team’s last home game in just the first half of this one. He splashed home a buzzer-beating three-pointer as he headed into halftime with 14 points.

While the team shot 6-of-13 from three-point range, four of those makes came from Gibbs-Lawhorn.

He would finish with at least 30 points for the sixth time this season. His final stat line would read 32 points with five made threes to go along with three steals despite four turnovers.

“We didn’t finish in the top four but man, I really believe like he deserves Player of the Year,” Pastner said. “At his size, what he’s done at the efficiency rate – I wish our team had won more to be in the top four and I understand that. But if you take that out and just [include] the individual talent on the individual year based on the efficiency.”

That effort was met by 30 points from Aztecs guard BJ Davis as part of a 52-point performance by the SDSU bench. UNLV met that with 27 points off the bench of its own.

“I thought it was a really good basketball game by two really good teams,” Pastner said. “I thought it was a high-level game. I said in the beginning it was going to be a 12-round boxing match and it lived up to that.

“I think both teams have competitive endurance and neither team broke. BJ Davis hit big time shots. He comes in averaging 10 points and he gets 30 so credit to him.”

Freshman forward Tyrin Jones accounted for 22 of those 27 points with 14 of his points coming in the second half. As a collective, UNLV won the points in the paint battle by two points.

Senior forward Kimani Hamilton was the final player in double-figures with 11 points but committed a crucial foul as part of his four-foul night. Down three points, he reached in on SDSU’s Reese Dixon-Waters beyond the arc which turned into three free throws.

In turn, Dixon-Waters converted on all three attempts from the charity stripe.

Senior guard Howie Fleming Jr. was the game’s leading rebounder with 11 boards on the night. This comes three nights after he recorded his second triple-double of the season.

Fleming Jr. drilled two of the team’s 10 made threes on the night including one with less than seven minutes left in regulation to put his team up a point.