Rebels still unranked following victory over Lobos

By Ryan Greene

Monday, Jan. 11, 2010 | 11:45 a.m.

UNLV came home from this weekend's trip to New Mexico with a nice split in its first two Mountain West Conference games.

A 77-73 loss Wednesday at BYU followed by a 74-62 victory Saturday over the Lobos kept the Rebels (13-3 overall, 1-1 MWC) within range of the Top 25 polls, but they did not crack the lists this week.

In the Associated Press poll, UNLV's 28 votes are up from 12 a week ago. In the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll, UNLV took in 26 votes after receiving 39 a week ago.

The Rebels come home this week for a pair of league games, beginning 7 p.m. Wednesday with San Diego State (12-4) and followed by a 7 p.m. Saturday game against Utah (8-7).

New Mexico dropped out of both polls after going 0-2 to start league play. Before falling to the Rebels, the Lobos dropped a 74-64 decision Tuesday at San Diego State. Steve Alford's team still received 59 votes from the AP and 54 from the nation's coaches.

BYU, now 16-1 following an impressive Saturday road win at UTEP, is the Mountain West's lone ranked team. The Cougars, who were without star guard Jimmer Fredette in El Paso (mononucleosis), are No. 18 in the AP poll and No. 17 in the coaches poll.

There finally was some shakeup atop both polls, as previous No. 1 Kansas suffered its first loss of the season Sunday at Tennessee.

With that result, Texas and Kentucky took over the top two spots, respectively, in both polls. They are the nation's only undefeated teams. Kansas slipped to third in both polls.