UNLV Runnin' Rebels Get Crushed At Home By The New Mexico Lobos

The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team caught a beatdown on Tuesday night at the hands of the New Mexico Lobos. To make matters worse, the game took place on the Rebels' home court at the Thomas & Mack Center. They went 0 - 2 on this crucial home stand against two of the top teams in the Mountain West Conference. New Mexico won this game by a lopsided score of 89 - 61. This was a brutal outcome for UNLV.

With this loss, the Rebels drop to 5 - 4 in Mountain West play and 10 - 10 overall. Any hope they had of winning the Mountain West regular-season title has vanished with these last two games. They are now three games back of first place in the standings. The Lobos moved to 8 - 2 in conference play with this win and 17 - 4 overall. That leaves them just 0.5 games behind the San Diego State Aztecs for first place in the Conference.

Following the loss to the Lobos, Rebels' head coach Josh Pastner spoke about UNLV's rough night.

"Credit to New Mexico," Paster said. "Bottom line, we got our butts kicked. We went 0-2 in this homestand, and that's unacceptable. They had a hit-first mentality, and we had a soft-first mentality. We've got to be better. We have a quick turnaround, in 72 hours we play at Nevada. I told our guys, your toughness will be tested to see how you respond Friday night."

Everything really fell apart for UNLV in the first half of this game. They were outscored 41 - 22 while shooting just 29.6% from the field, while New Mexico shot 51.7%. While we are pointing at this as the key issue for the loss, UNLV was dominated across the board in almost every statistical category.

Usually, this is where we tell you who the star of the game was for the Rebels, but not one Rebel even reached double-digits in this game. Freshman guard Isaac Williamson led the team with nine points. Howie Fleming Jr led the team in both rebounds and assists with six rebounds and five assists. Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn led the team with three steals and Emmanuel Stephen had a team-high two blocks.

Unfortunately, things started off badly right from the jump, with Tyrin Jones getting injured less than two minutes into the game. There has not been an update on the injury, but he was unable to return to the game.

The Rebels would like to bounce back against their arch rivals, the Nevada Wolf Pack, on the road on Friday night. It will be a tough matchup for UNLV, especially if Jones can't play, but it's a win they desperately need.

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