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First road trip of the season, woes continued as the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels went 0-2 after dropping their latest against San Francisco.
The Rebels were beaten 83-62 by the Dons, Saturday, Dec. 4 from War Memorial Gym.
A loss meant an 0-2 road trip for UNLV falling to an undefeated (9-0) San Francisco team.
Now the program has lost five of its last six games with the lone win coming against a Division-III Whittier College team.
UNLV will take its 4-5 record back to Las Vegas for two games from the Michelob Ultra Arena where it will play Seattle University and the University of Hartford next week.
First, the Redhawks of Seattle come to town Wednesday, Dec. 8 with tip-off set for 7 p.m.
Another cold stretch in the second half doomed the Rebels. This time around the team was without a field goal for nearly six minutes.
Earlier that half, the team endured a scoreless stretch of nearly two and a half minutes.
Down seven, senior guard Bryce Hamilton was stripped as USF proceeded to run the lead to nine with a layup in transition. After committing four turnovers in the first half, UNLV was forced into four in the first 10 minutes of the game.
Soon after the lead would grow to 15 and then to 22 before the final buzzer sounded.
Head coach Kevin Kruger has recently lobbied for better shot selection in games in hopes that will stop the offensive struggles the team has endured.
That lobbying came with a lineup change in the form of sending Hamilton, who is the team’s leading scorer and transfer forward Donovan Williams to the bench.
After falling behind by as many as 13 points early, Kruger turned to his bench.
Hamilton responded with seven points on 3-of-4 to start his outing, including a made three.
A floater from him later in the half would cut the deficit to seven points.
Hamilton started the second half and finished the game with 25 points on 10-of-19 from the field.
Williams made back-to-back baskets in the first half on a layup and three-pointer to take the deficit all the way down to two points.
To that point, Hamilton and Williams had combined for 19 points and were the team’s top two scorers.
UNLV ended the first half six for its last eight field goals while San Francisco was one for its last eight.
However, foul trouble would hamper Williams in the second half as he was limited with four fouls.