Back from injury, Shaw stands out in Rebels scrimmage

By Rob Miech

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009 | 1:04 a.m.

Matt Shaw made the big plays at both ends of the Thomas & Mack Center court late Friday night to clinch a game for his team.

Doing it when it matters is the next step for UNLV’s 6-foot-8 junior power forward. But Friday’s intrasquad scrimmage before maybe 5,000 fans mattered plenty to Shaw.

“I’m so happy just being able to be back in basketball, in general,” Shaw said. “It feels good. I haven’t been on this floor in front of fans in so long. Today is like a present for me, like Christmas.

“To play in front of fans felt so good.”

After tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee just before his team’s tour of Australia in June 2008, Shaw sat out last season recuperating from surgery and to strengthen his leg.

He was one of the Rebels who stood out in the 20-minute scrimmage, in which the black team defeated the white squad, 39-38. Shaw had nine points, but he was the star at the end of the game.

The black trailed, 38-37, when Shaw grabbed a rebound off Justin Hawkins’ errant jumper and put it back in the basket with 26 seconds left. Shaw was fouled by Brice Massamba, but he missed the free throw.

Still, Shaw had given his team a 39-38 edge when Tre’Von Willis dribbled down for the white team and bled much of the remaining time off the clock.

Willis shifted to his left and passed the ball to junior guard Kendall Wallace, who tried driving in through the left side as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

But Shaw met Wallace in the left post and swatted his shot away, securing the victory for the black squad.

“I don’t know … sometimes we go at each other in practice,” Shaw said of Wallace. “I got the upper hand on him today, but you never know. He might make some shots on me the next day. I happened to get it. I timed it perfectly.

“I’m trying to do whatever I need to do so we can win. I’ll try to rebound, defend, score and be a leader. I want to be the guy to do it all.

During the offseason, many Rebels said the 2009-10 version of the team is going to be more proficient dunking the ball. UNLV games are going to rain jams, they said.

Friday night, there was only one dunk. Senior center Darris Santee, who led everyone with 13 points, had a two-hander in transition to cut the black team’s deficit to 36-33 with 3:15 left.

A few of the Rebels owed the below-the-rim game to Friday morning’s practice, a two-hour run that focused on defense. Come Friday night, their legs were zapped.

“We really got after it this morning,” said Anthony Marshall, a freshman guard from Mojave High. “A lot of us felt tired. We didn’t want to risk injury, so we did layups.”

Chace Stanback, the gifted sophomore forward who sat out last season after transferring from UCLA, missed the scrimmage with a sore left ankle that he recently rolled in a pick-up game.

He said he figures to miss about a week of action.

Quintrell Thomas couldn’t play because he is redshirting after transferring from Kansas. In addition, he’s recovering from July surgery on the labrum in his left shoulder.

However, he participated in most of the pre-game warm-up drills and said he’s “way ahead” of schedule.

“They don’t want to rush anything because, after all, I can’t actually play this year,” Thomas said. “I’ll probably be practicing around December. I’ve got my full range of motion back.”

Sophomore guard Oscar Bellfield also scored nine points, on three 3-point shots, and Wallace had eight points with a variety of moves.

Wallace started the scoring in the scrimmage with an easy layup off a superb feed from new center Carlos Lopez, who helped Findlay College Prep win a national championship in April.

Wallace tipped in Lopez’s miss, nailed a fade-away baseline jumper and snuck inside for another layup in the second half.

Lopez went 2-for-4 at the line, missed a 3-pointer and had some difficulty trying to dribble too frequently, and he admitted he was nervous in his first game in a UNLV uniform before fans.

“Oh yeah, of course,” Lopez said. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

Massamba, a sophomore center who played with Lopez at Findlay two seasons ago, looked as good on the court as he has off it from his conditioning and weight work over the summer.

He also had nine points and ran the court well, despite battling a flu bug for the previous three days. He dunked during the layup line in warm-ups but not in the scrimmage.

“All this hard work, it has to transfer to the court,” Massamba said. “Our defense is so good. Everyone is athletic this season, so the defense is really good. But, yeah, I promise more dunks.”

The scrimmage was also a big deal to Derrick Jasper, the Kentucky transfer who spent his redshirt year last season rehabbing his surgically repaired left knee.

He did not score, but he said he was just trying to set up others.

“It’s been a long journey for me,” Jasper said. “I’m just excited to play for the Rebels. The white team, we were trying to work on plays to get our big men involved, to work inside out.

“Matt played real well. He had some good shots. And Darris played real aggressive. Carlos played real long, and Brice is playing a lot better.”

Shaw paused when asked if he’s better than when UNLV fans last saw him play a game inside the Mack.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not satisfied where I’m at. It’s hard for me to say. I’m hard on myself. I’m definitely working harder than I did before, but I’m not stopping. I want to do even more.”