Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV closes regular season with clutch win at Colorado State

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Steve Marcus

UNLV Runnin’ Rebels guard Kris Clyburn (1) drives against UNR at the Thomas & Mack Center Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.

It goes without saying that every team wants to be playing its best basketball at this time of year. UNLV may not quite be there yet — opinions varied after Saturday’s 65-60 win at Colorado State — but Kris Clyburn certainly is.

The senior guard was on fire for the entirety of the Rebels’ regular-season finale, making 7-of-8 field goals and 6-of-6 from 3-point range to lead UNLV with 20 points. Clyburn’s go-ahead 3-pointer with less than two minutes to play proved to be the biggest shot, and now the Rebels will head into the Mountain West tournament with some momentum (and their best conference record in nearly a decade).

The Rebels (17-13, 11-7 MWC) used scorching hot shooting to build a 39-26 halftime lead, and they pushed their advantage to 18 points early in the second half (44-26). But the team’s outside touch went cold, and Colorado State fought back.

A 10-0 run by CSU brought the Rams within 51-50 with five minutes to play, and when Adam Thistlewood canned an open 3-pointer to give Colorado State a 57-56 lead with 2:20 left, it looked like UNLV might stumble into the postseason in the worst way.

But Clyburn stepped up on the next possession. Inbounding the ball from under the basket, senior point guard Noah Robotham spotted Clyburn in the right corner, and Clyburn unspooled a picture-perfect 3-pointer to regain the lead with 1:55 on the clock.

After a defensive stop, UNLV ran down the shot clock before Robotham lobbed an alley-oop to Mbacke Diong to extend the lead to 61-57. The Rebels made their free throws the rest of the way to close out the schedule with their fifth season sweep.

“It’s one of those big-time wins we needed on the road,” Clyburn said. “We’re 5-4 on the road throughout the whole conference. That’s a statement on our season. We did a pretty solid job. We’re just going to try to make this momentum carry over into the tournament.”

The inbound play that led to Clyburn’s clutch 3-pointer was designed to go to power forward Joel Ntambwe, but UNLV’s simpatico senior guards caught Colorado State’s J.D. Paige asleep on defense.

“It was a play for the 4-man, but I slid to the corner,” Clyburn said. “My man was ball-watching. I don’t know what he was looking at. And then Noah, we just made eye contact and he saw me and I knocked it down.”

After struggling to get the ball in safely on previous baseline out-of-bounds plays against CSU, the Robotham-to-Clyburn connection made all the difference as the Rebels avoided a season-ending collapse.

“I’m just reading the backside guy,” Robotham said. “You have to sell the backdoor by basically being out of bounds. On that skip pass [the defender has] to be completely below him, and Paige didn’t cover the baseline fully so the skip pass was wide open. And good on Kris. Seniors make big plays on the road and that’s what he did.”

After suffering through a slump that saw him shoot 9-of-40 from 3-point range in the month of February, Clyburn has bounced back by making 11 of 15 in UNLV’s last two games. He scored 21 against Boise State last week.

Robotham finished with 12 points and eight assists. Paige led Colorado State with 16 points, but made just 6-of-19 from the field.

UNLV finishes the 2018-19 season in fifth place in the Mountain West, and fourth-place San Diego State awaits in the conference quarterfinal on Thursday. The Rebels lost both matchups with SDSU this season.

With the season on the line Thursday, the Rebels’ senior leaders were almost in agreement about the state of the team.

“I think we’re playing our best basketball right now,” Robotham said. “I’m looking forward to the conference tournament. At the end of the day, you’ve got to put together 40 minutes.”

Clyburn wasn’t ready to say UNLV has peaked yet, but expressed confidence that it would happen.

“I feel like we’re right there,” Clyburn said. “We’ll reach our best by the end of the year. It’s the last game in conference, so I feel like heading into the tournament we’ve got a little momentum. We’re on our way to playing our best basketball in March.”

Head coach Marvin Menzies did his part against Colorado State, as he deployed a surprise zone defense which limited the Rams to 36.5-percent shooting.

Like Clyburn, he stopped just short of declaring that UNLV is playing its best.

“You always want your team to be a little better, right?” Menzies said. “Overall I don’t think any coach is ever really fully pleased, but I’m happy with the progress for sure.”

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

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