UNLV basketball can’t keep up in one-sided loss at San Diego State

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023 | 4:18 p.m.

With less than four minutes remaining in UNLV’s 82-71 loss at San Diego State, senior Luis Rodriguez was subbed out and made his way to the bench.

Rodriguez took a seat, looked up at the scoreboard, and shook his head dejectedly.

That pretty much summed up UNLV’s performance on Saturday, as San Diego State had its way on both ends of the court from beginning to end in claiming its fifth straight win over the Scarlet and Gray.

The onslaught began right from the opening tip, as the Aztecs got dunks from Nathan Mensah and Keshad Johnson on the first two possessions to stake a 4-0 lead. Urged on by the boisterous atmosphere inside Viejas Arena, the home team clamped down on defense, completely shut down UNLV and took a 43-23 advantage into halftime. 

How one-sided were the first 20 minutes?

At halftime, San Diego State had six dunks while UNLV had six field goals.

UNLV went the final 8:45 of the half without a basket.

UNLV’s offense was smothered to such an extent that the team recorded zero assists in the first half. They committed seven turnovers.

San Diego State has now won 21 of the last 23 meetings between the two teams.

Kevin Kruger has only been at the helm for the last four matchups, but he has yet to notch his first victory in the series. When asked after the game how he can bridge the wide gulf between the programs, Kruger stuck to generalities.

“We’ve got to get better,” Kruger said. “Keep working and get better.”

The loss dropped UNLV to 16-9 on the season and 5-9 in Mountain West play.

E.J. Harkless continued his hot shooting month with 24 points, and Keshon Gilbert scored 19 (most after the game had been decided). The rest of the team managed just 28 points on 10-of-30 from the field.

San Diego State used a 14-0 run midway through the first half to put the game away. Lamont Butler, Mensah and Matt Bradley each had dunks during that spurt.

Harkless said UNLV just couldn’t keep up once SDSU started rolling.

“That’s a team that bullies a lot of teams,” Harkless said. “All they need is one break or one offensive rebound and that’s how they get going. That was our biggest thing. It can either be a lesson learned or a loss for us.”

San Diego State shot 51.7% from the field, led by 18 points from Adam Seiko and 17 from Bradley. And when the Aztecs did miss, they more often than not grabbed the offensive rebound.

For the game, SDSU pulled down 18 offensive boards to UNLV’s 13 defensive rebounds.

Harkless pointed to that maniacal rebounding effort as San Diego State’s biggest attribute.

“Their selflessness is what makes them so good, in my opinion,” Harkless said. “They just don’t care. They get guys that don’t care about shooting the ball. They get guys that want to go get the ball off the rim.”

UNLV got very little offensive production from its starting lineup aside from Harkless and Gilbert. The trio of Victor Iwuakor (zero points), Eli Parquet (two points) and Rodriguez (three points) combined to score five points on 1-of-12 shooting.

If the teams meet again in the Mountain West tournament, UNLV will have to find a way to match San Diego State’s intensity — or suffer the same fate.

“There were some moments when we were on our heels a little bit and San Diego State was the aggressor,” Kruger said. “It’s going to happen against them. They always play incredibly hard and incredibly well together.”

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