\n<\/p>\n
The last time the Rebels advanced to the championship game was in 2013, when they lost the title to New Mexico. UNLV\u2019s last appearance in the semifinals was in 2014.<\/p>\n
First-year head coach Josh Pastner, who led his former teams to five NCAA Tournament appearances as a head coach over 14 seasons at Memphis and Georgia Tech, wants to change that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a great opportunity for us. Everyone starts 0-0, and you get kind of a renewed, fresh season in a sense,\u201d Pastner said. \u201cObviously, the goal is to win the tournament and keep playing in the NCAA tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
A turnaround like that from a season that mostly teetered around .500 would be a feat for the ages, but Pastner realizes that he and his No. 8-seeded team can\u2019t get too far ahead of themselves.<\/p>\n
The path begins Wednesday against No. 9 Wyoming for the Rebels, a matchup that has the team\u2019s full attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t get to the end if you don\u2019t win the first game,\u201d Pastner said. \u201cSo we understand how important this first game is.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter what happens in the tournament, the Rebels\u2019 roller-coaster season at least showed a strong proof of concept.<\/p>\n
UNLV is averaging 80.2 points per game, which is the highest since the 2017-18 and second-highest since 1999-00. The team\u2019s tempo this year, the speed at which the Rebels played, is 48th in the country, per KenPom rankings \u2014 another best since the 2017-18 campaign.<\/p>\n
Pastner said he received emails and phone calls when he was hired from fans asking him to restore the spirit of the vintage \u201cRunnin\u2019 Rebels.\u201d He\u2019s shown that he can lead a team that plays fast and scores.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur style of play is an exciting brand to watch, and we\u2019ve got to be better defensively. I\u2019ve said that a bunch,\u201d Pastner said. \u201cBut there\u2019s also been a lot of positives, so hopefully we can keep extending it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the accolades garnered by Pastner\u2019s overhauled roster as the Mountain West announced postseason awards Tuesday showed improvement.<\/p>\n
Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn was named the newcomer of the year and earned first-team all-conference recognition, while Jones was selected to the all-defensive team and received an honorable mention all-conference nod.<\/p>\n
Gibbs-Lawhorn\u2019s is only UNLV\u2019s second Mountain West newcomer of the year award winner, and the first since Mike Moser landed the honor in 2012.<\/p>\n
Jones is the first true freshman to be named to the league\u2019s all-defensive team since 2019. He led the league with 2.0 blocks per game, the first UNLV player to do so since the 2014-15 season.<\/p>\n
The Rebels made multiple cases for the league player of the year award to go to Gibbs-Lawhorn, who said he thought Jones should\u2019ve been defensive player of the year.<\/p>\n
Gibbs-Lawhorn said the awards, along with the Rebels only being given a 3 percent chance to win the Mountain West tournament by multiple national outlets, add up to nothing for the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really not a factor,\u201d Gibbs-Lawhorn said. \u201cI\u2019d say almost everyone that isn\u2019t us counted us out throughout this whole season. So it\u2019s got to the point we really don\u2019t care what anyone thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guard Howie Fleming Jr. didn\u2019t earn any league recognition but he etched his name in the record books with two triple-doubles in a 10-day span this season, joining Stacey Augmon as the only two players to notch two such performances in their career. Fleming is the only Rebel to do it twice in the same campaign, and he finished the regular season as one of only three players in the country with two triple-doubles this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have caught our stride,\u201d Pastner said. \u201cYou don\u2019t come in here and have guys immediately understand the culture. It takes a little time\u2026 I don\u2019t want this season to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one strength that might help keep the Rebels\u2019 season alive, and it lies within the answer Fleming and Gibbs-Lawhorn both gave when asked separately what comes to mind when they reflect on the regular season: adversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you face adversity as a group of people or even with a certain person, you find out whether you guys really love each other or you guys hate each other,\u201d Gibbs-Lawhorn said. \u201cAnd I feel like everyone can agree that during the adversity and the hard times we faced, we grew a lot closer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow @Callie__Fin on X.<\/p>\n Up next<\/strong><\/p>\n Who:<\/strong> No. 8 UNLV vs. No. 9 Wyoming<\/p>\n What:<\/strong> Mountain West men’s tournament<\/p>\n When:<\/strong> Noon Wednesday<\/p>\n Where:<\/strong> Thomas & Mack Center<\/p>\n TV:<\/strong> Mountain West Network (streaming)<\/p>\n Radio:<\/strong> KWWN (1100 AM, 100.9 FM)<\/p>\n Line: <\/strong>UNLV -3\u00bd; total 154\u00bd<\/p><\/div>\n For more than a decade, the Mountain West tournament hasn\u2019t offered a cause for excitement to fans of UNLV men\u2019s basketball. The last time the Rebels advanced to the championship game was in 2013, when they lost the title to New Mexico. UNLV\u2019s last appearance in the semifinals was in 2014. First-year head coach Josh … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/UNLV-basketball-hoping-to-surprise-in-the-Mountain-West-tournament.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23447,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23445\/revisions\/23447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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