UNLV basketball bottoms out in blowout loss to Utah State

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 | 11:30 p.m.

What is the opposite of peaking at the right time?

At a time of year when the UNLV basketball team is trying to play its way into a postseason berth, the Scarlet and Gray instead turned in their worst performance of the 2022-23 campaign, allowing Utah State to romp on both ends of the court in a 91-66 blowout at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The showing was so poor that UNLV senior guard Justin Webster took the podium for the postgame press conference and issued a statement before any questions were asked.

“To everybody out there, as a leader of this team, we apologize for the way we presented ourselves tonight,” he said. “That’s not basketball. That’s not UNLV basketball.”

UNLV better hope Webster is right about that, because if this is UNLV basketball, the team is going home early in next week’s Mountain West tournament — no matter the opponent.

The offense sunk to its lowest point Wednesday, as the gameplan went out the window early and the playbook devolved into 40 minutes of 1-on-1 attacks that mostly went nowhere.

With no ball movement, no player movement and no cohesion to speak of, UNLV shot 31.6% from the field and recorded just six assists on the night. That’s an average of one assist for every six minutes and 42 seconds of game time.

UNLV also committed 17 turnovers, which led head coach Kevin Kruger to pretty much plead for more movement and more sharing of the ball.

“We dribble more than any team in the country,” Kruger said. “We did exactly what [Utah State] wanted us to do — dribbled into crowds, dribbled when we didn’t have anything.”

E.J. Harkless proved to be the only UNLV player capable of scoring in iso situations, tallying 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting. The rest of the team went 11-of-42 from the field (26.1%).

Kruger credited the Utah State defense, but said UNLV did not space the floor properly, or at all, which choked the entire offense.

“We’ve got to get the ball snapping around. We’ve got to get it moving,” Kruger said. “There were a lot of times when we were pressing. We were just catching and driving into crowds. There’s nowhere to go. Offensively, I think we’re going to look at a lot of those possessions and say we just needed one more pass, one more cut, one more driving lane open for a teammate.”

UNLV’s stagnancy was only made more glaring by what was happening on the other end of the court. Utah State’s decisive, well-spaced, pass-happy approach made easy work of the Scarlet and Gray, especially in the second half.

After UNLV used an 8-0 run to close within 49-45 with 16 minutes remaining — the only time the home team showed life all night — Utah State pressed down on the accelerator. Guard Steven Ashworth nailed two 3-pointers to restore the Aggies’ double-digit lead, and in the blink of an eye the lead ballooned to 20 points, eventually topping out at 29 points.

As the margin widened, UNLV gave up on the defensive end. Utah State shot 73.1% from the field in the second half, which would be hard to do in an empty gym. The Aggies made more field goals in the second half than UNLV managed all game (19-18).

Utah State finished the game shooting 61.8%, a figure bolstered by their five dunks and six layups. Ashworth led all scorers with 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting.

UNLV senior guard Jordan McCabe said Utah State simply wanted it more.

“On one side of the ball you had a team fighting for an NCAA Tournament appearance, trying to get in the field,” McCabe said. “You felt the urgency shift into a team that felt like they needed to win vs. a team that would like to win.”

The loss drops UNLV to 17-12 on the season and 6-11 in Mountain West play. If the team loses its finale at UNR on Saturday, they’ll be locked into the 8/9 game in the first round of the conference tournament.

So, where does UNLV go from here? After spending the week talking about peaking at the right time, a loss like Wednesday night’s has to be concerning. But Webster believes there’s still time to pull out of the nosedive.

“Anything can happen in March,” Webster said. “That’s the great thing about March. Today was a tough one, we didn’t play like we were supposed to play, but we have a big one against Reno on Saturday and we’ll be ready for that one.”

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