Defense saves UNLV basketball in season opener hosting Southern U

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Monday, Nov. 7, 2022 | 10:29 p.m.

With eight minutes to play in the season opener against Southern on Monday, UNLV went cold.

Ice cold.

Seven-minutes-without-a-point cold.

The kind of intense cold that can turn a cupcake win into a frustrating loss.

But instead of watching their double-digit lead evaporate entirely, the Scarlet and Gray made it hold up on the other end. Despite not scoring a single point for more than seven minutes down the stretch, UNLV dug in on defense and fended off Southern for a 66-56 victory at the Thomas & Mack Center.

“Defense saved us,” head coach Kevin Kruger said.

UNLV led by 17 points with 8 minutes remaining and appeared to be cruising to an easy win, and then the scoreboard froze altogether. Kruger’s squad went 7 minutes and 17 seconds without scoring, which should have been long enough for Southern to threaten.

UNLV held the Jaguars to 2-of-8 shooting during that span, however, and also forced 3 turnovers to mitigate the damage. Southern never got closer than 7 points, and UNLV made its free throws in the final minute to seal it.

In the end, the epic offensive drought ended up as a teaching moment and not as the cause of a catastrophic defeat.

The backbone of the win was smothering perimeter defense from guards Keshon Gilbert, E.J. Harkless and Eli Parquet, who hounded Southern ball-handlers all night. Harkless finished with 5 steals, and UNLV forced 28 turnovers on 75 possessions.

Kruger spent the offseason recruiting a transfer-heavy class that could help UNLV apply more pressure on the defensive end, and that vision came together Monday.

“We were dead last in the league last year in points created off turnovers,” Kruger said. “That’s something that we absolutely want to have as one of our staples.

“We probably don’t win that game without 28 turnovers for us.”

Gilbert, a sophomore, led UNLV with 13 points and three assists. Harkless totaled 11 points, five rebounds and the five takeaways.

Aside from those two, offense was impossible to come by for UNLV. The Scarlet and Gray shot just 31.3% from the field and an ugly 4-of-26 from 3-point range (15.4%).

The second half devolved into a demolition derby of sorts, with players colliding on every possession, leaving the court littered with bodies from both teams.

The physical tone worked to UNLV’s advantage, according to Gilbert.

“I love it,” Gilbert said. “We’re going to get aggressive with you. We ain’t trying to hurt nobody, we ain’t tackling people on the floor intentionally. But we’re going to get aggressive this year.”

Southern was held to 35.8% shooting on the night, and 25 of the Jaguars’ 56 points came from Bryson Etienne. The rest of the team made just 10 field goals.

Jackie Johnson, a sophomore transfer from Duquesne, was the only other UNLV player to hit double figures with 10 points, but he shot 2-of-9 to get there.

UNLV will have four days to iron out the wrinkles on offense before returning to the court to host Incarnate Word on Saturday.

“I think it was a great performance by us defensively,” Harkless said. “We’ve got a couple things we can clean up offensively that we’ll attack this week.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.