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On the annual Senior Night for the UNLV men’s basketball team, it relied on the closing performance of its stellar freshman point guard to preserve another ranked win.
Freshman guard Dedan Thomas Jr. closed the show during a, 62-58, win for the Runnin’ Rebels over the San Diego State Aztecs Tuesday, March 5 from the Thomas & Mack Center. The win avenges an 11–point loss for the program to SDSU to open Mountain West play.
“We didn’t start off the season the way we wanted to,” fifth-year forward Keylan Boone said. “But we’re finishing it out how we want to [...] We’re a scary team in this conference.”
In five opportunities this year, head coach Kevin Kruger has coached his team to four ranked wins.
“This [one] might be just a little bit different,” Kruger said. “There’s kind of an aura around San Diego State of confidence, that they play with and they show. That’s something that makes teams hard and it's a skill and it comes from 20 years of being really good as a program.
“Of course with their run last year and how much success they’ve had in the Mountain West its a little bit different.”
Riding high when it matters most has been the main contributing factor to this current winning stretch for the program as it picks up its 10th win in its last 11 tries.
As a result, the team is now one win away from recording its second 20-win season in the last seven campaigns. This now sets up another huge game with final standings implications.
In the regular season finale, the Rebels will travel up north for a date with the intrastate rival Nevada – Reno Wolf Pack Saturday, March 9. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in that primetime rivalry match.
“In a lot of ways, they deserved it,” Kruger said. “Six weeks ago or so everybody wrote everyone in this program off. There was just kind of a nastiness around it but they stuck together, they continued to work, they won in some tough venues and they’ve won at home.”
Kruger turned to his freshman point guard with the game tied 58-all with just under 45 seconds left in regulation. Thomas rewarded his coach and teammates by taking the lead on a midrange jumpshot after getting the switch he wanted off the screen. Soon after, he’d add two free throws to help provide more cushion.
“Our point guard rocked out,” Boone said. “He saved us. He saved us once again.”
Around the four minute-mark of the second half the Liberty high school product rattled off five straight points after the Aztecs had trimmed the lead to two points. Thomas finished with a game-high 19 points in the wire-to-wire win.
“The crowd we had tonight was great,” Thomas said. “It almost looked like when I was coming here as a little kid coming to Rebel games. It was a fun atmosphere tonight.”
After the free throws from Thomas, fifth-year forward Kalib Boone came up with a block on the ensuing SDSU possession. The possession came to an end when Keylan hauled in his game-high 11th rebound of the night to go along with 16 points.
“[Kalib] saved my ass,” Keylan said. “We were just in a meeting and they were saying to don’t switch, stay attached and that wasn’t the case. He lost me and KB helped me out. It played out in both our favor, he got the block and I got the rebound and that’s what sealed it.”
That defensive stand was the final exclamation point to a performance that saw UNLV hold its opponent without a point for the first 4:57 of the game and without a field goal for close to eight minutes after tip-off. Ultimately, San Diego State opened the game one for its first 16 field goal attempts.
Mountain West leading scorer, Jaedon LeDee, was guarded for majority of the night by junior forward Rob Whaley Jr.] LeDee started the game 1-for-7 with half of his four points coming from the free throw line after entering the game in the nation’s top-20 in scoring.
“It was unbelievable,” Kruger said. “The way [Whaley Jr.] battled him, the way he stood his ground. Those are two large humans playing basketball with a lot of physicality [...] Undoubtedly, we wouldn’t have had a chance to win that game had he not played on LeDee the way he did.”
LeDee would be held to just eight points in the first half with two makes on his nine field goal tries. Things were compounded when he went the first 15-plus minutes of the second half without a point on his way to 12 points on 2-for-12 shooting.
UNLV’s team defense was evident as part of an effort that saw San Diego State go scoreless for nearly five minutes. At one point of the second half, Aztecs head coach Brian Dutcher was given a technical foul for arguing with the officials.
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