Ram (not so) tough

Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008 | 12:29 a.m.

Here's what happened at the UNLV basketball game Saturday afternoon:

-- Joe Darger missed a lot of shots.

-- Wink Adams (23 points) returned to his pre-Utah form.

-- Corey Bailey made two more high-wire dunks without a trapeze.

-- Colorado State's Marcus Walker (24 points) nearly ran out of his shirt, which was hanging off his shoulders to begin with.

-- Oh yeah, and Lon Kruger picked up his 400th victory as a college coach.

The Rebels (18-5, 7-2 Mountain West) never trailed en route to a 68-51 victory. They jumped to an 8-0 lead against the Rams (6-17, 0-9) who are so bad, they should apologize to Roman Gabriel and the Fearsome Foursome for defaming the name.

With UNLV running on cruise control, Rebels fans who did not Pack the Mack (although that was the plan with lots of cheap tickets available) had plenty of time to come up with a makeshift banner or two commemorating Kruger's milestone win. But none did. That was probably because Kruger refuses to blow his own horn, so perhaps they didn't know.

Afterward -- way afterward -- a confetti cannon exploded, which may or may not have been for Kruger. By then, he was holding court in the postgame news conference, telling the press that 400 wins was no big deal.

"Any time you win, it feels great," he said, sounding a lot like he did after win No. 100 or 200 or, for that matter, No. 378. "A lot of people share in this. We've had good teams. We like what our team is doing."

Adams begged to differ with his coach. Not about liking what the Rebels are doing, the part about 400 being no big deal.

"It's a big deal," said the Rebels' leading scorer. "He never hyped it up. We knew about it when we were going to Utah. We had to make it special for him today."

UNLV will return to action Tuesday night at home against Air Force while Colorado State will visit the Washington Generals.