Don’t expect UNLV’s New Year’s Eve plans at Wyoming to be pretty

By Taylor Bern

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014 | 2 a.m.

Limping and wincing from a first-half ankle injury, Wyoming’s Larry Nance Jr. did everything he could the last time he met the UNLV basketball team. Nance hobbled his way to 12 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in a 48-46 loss, the Rebels’ lowest-scoring victory since 2009.

“I can already submit my (all-conference) ballot and put Nance on the ballot,” Rice said after the game on Feb. 8. “He’ll be in the NBA in a couple of years.”

Ten days later Nance suffered a torn ACL and no one was sure when he would return or how he would perform once he did. The answer, impressively, was as soon as possible and arguably better than ever.

Nance has played in every game this year for the Cowboys (11-2), averaging 14.5 points and 6.2 rebounds per game with career highs in effective field-goal percentage (56.9) and turnover rate (11.2), among other categories. Last year he was a questionable first-team All-Mountain West selection since he missed nearly half the league games, but now the Rebels are going to get a fully healthy Nance when they open conference play at Wyoming on New Year’s Eve.

“It doesn’t seem like he missed a beat,” Rice said. “He’s playing as well as anybody in our conference.”

The game tips off at 6 p.m. Las Vegas time and will stream on ESPN3.

One thing that will help is the Rebels (9-3) should have Goodluck Okonoboh available. The freshman , who missed the Southern Utah victory after reaggravating a knee injury against Arizona, practiced Monday and Tuesday and is expected to play tonight.

That’s good news, because it’s going to take everything the Rebels have against a veteran team that’s 10-0 at home this season. Five of the Cowboys’ top seven scorers are seniors, which is part of the reason coach Larry Shyatt called his team one of the most dependable in the country.

“You get what you get,” Shyatt said. “… Not always pretty, but pretty consistent.”

It’s not exactly the way UNLV would like to ease into conference play with an eight-man rotation that features only two players — senior Jelan Kendrick and sophomore Christian Wood, the reigning league and national player of the week — who have played a Mountain West game before. And neither have played at Arena-Auditorium. The league’s uneven schedule left Laramie off the Rebels’ slate last year, something Shyatt cracked about early in his conference call this week.

“I’m so used to playing at UNLV, I didn’t know we hosted them ever,” he said, adding another quip to his years-long list of barbs about the Mountain West Tournament being played at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Cowboys have taken the brunt of whatever home-court advantage UNLV possesses during that tournament, getting knocked out by the Rebels two of the last three seasons. However, the only home-court advantage Rice is worried about right now is the one at the renovated A-A, which is a 2.5-hour bus ride from Denver International Airport.

“It’s always a major advantage for them just because of how difficult it is to get there,” Rice said.

In one recent season the Rebels chartered a flight straight to Laramie but that was too expensive and too difficult to organize on New Year’s Eve, Rice said.

When the Cowboys have been at full strength the past three seasons — before Luke Martinez’s suspension in 2012-13 and before Nance’s injury in 13-14 — the Cowboys are a combined 33-2 at home. Only a handful of those wins were against quality teams but their success up in the altitude is part of the reason the Cowboys are an overnight 6-point favorite against the Rebels.

But a little more than a week after defeating then-No. 3 Arizona, Shyatt sees in UNLV what many believe they’re seeing in the inconsistent Rebels.

“Improvement would be the most striking issue (we’re facing),” Shyatt said. “This is a team that’s gotten better and better.”

UNLV needs that to be true, because it’s facing a potential player of the year who seems like he’s still improving. Plus Wyoming has a lot more weapons than just Nance, and all of them prefer to keep the game ugly.

Remember, the Pokes aren’t always pretty, but they never make it easy.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.