Saturday, March 11, 2000 | 9:38 a.m.
LAS VEGAS - UNLV made an emphatic statement in its bid for an NCAA tournament berth Saturday night, opening with a 26-2 run and going on to blow out BYU 79-56 to win the first Mountain West Conference basketball championship.
UNLV, winning for the 23rd time, dominated from the opening tip with a relentless defense that held BYU to only one field goal and three points in the first 13:36 of the game.
With no automatic berth in the tournament for the new conference, the Runnin' Rebels had to impress the NCAA selection committee with a win against a team UNLV had lost to twice during the regular season.
UNLV (23-7) did just that, turning a 2-2 game into a rout by scoring the next 24 points before a roaring home crowd at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Trevor Diggs scored the first five points for UNLV, part of his game-high 20 for UNLV. Dalron Johnson had 18 and and Kaspars Kambala added 15 for the Runnin' Rebels.
Mekeli Wesley scored 19 and and Terrel Lyday had 18 for BYU.
UNLV led by as many as 38 points in the second half, before BYU closed the gap some against UNLV's reserves.
UNLV led 17-2 before missing a shot, and was up 28-3 before Wesley hit a layup with 6:24 left in the half for BYU's first field goal since the opening minute of play.
During that period, UNLV's smothering man-to-man defense held BYU (20-10) to one field goal in 13 tries, while the Cougars turned the ball over another eight times.
At one point, BYU didn't score for nearly 10 minutes.
BYU recovered to make four out of its last five shots of the half, but with UNLV dominating on the boards, the Rebels opened the biggest lead of the game, 43-14, before Wesley hit a basket as time ran out to make it a 27-point halftime lead.
UNLV went on another 15-4 run to open the second half, erasing any thoughts BYU had of mounting a comeback. Johnson's jumper from the free throw line with 15 minutes left in the game gave UNLV its biggest lead of the night, 58-20.
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