UNLV Beats Titans, 74-64, to Capture Its Fifth PCAA Title

Nevada Las Vegas clinched the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. regular-season championship Thursday night. In terms of news value, this ranks somewhere with the sun rising in the morning, or a traffic jam on the San Diego Freeway.

Coach Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels ended another PCAA non-drama by beating Cal State Fullerton, 74-64, in front of 19,246 spectators in Thomas and Mack Center, the biggest crowd ever to see the Titans play basketball. The victory clinched UNLV’s fifth straight PCAA title. This is the Rebels’ fifth season in the conference. You want parity? Look elsewhere.

Moral victories were all Cal State Fullerton Coach George McQuarn really expected when he brought his team to Las Vegas to play the top-ranked team in the country. Earlier in the season, McQuarn had said it was his team’s goal to win 10 of its last 11 games. This was the one he had excluded from the win column on the basis of realism.

As anticipated, the Titans left with a loss that snapped a five-game winning streak. But there were a few minor victories in defeat. Fullerton outscored the Rebels, 13-3, over the first six minutes of the second half to take a 43-38 lead and make some of the high rollers who inhabit Thomas and Mack Center a little uneasy. The Titans held Rebel guard Freddie Banks, who entered the game averaging 20.4 points a game, to 11 and put enough defensive pressure on the Rebels to make them shoot a season-low 38% from the field. Guard Richard Morton and forward Henry Turner had 20 points each for the Titans (6-7, 13-9).

But Armon Gilliam had 24 points and 9 rebounds and Mark Wade contributed 14 points and 10 assists to lead UNLV (13-0, 25-1) to its 10th straight victory. It was one Tarkanian was quite pleased to get.

“They’re one of the best teams in the country right now,” said Tarkanian, exercising his right to postgame hyperbole. “I told the kids before the game that they’re as good as Oklahoma. I sincerely believe that.”

Okalahoma is the only team to beat the Rebels this season. The Titans are merely the only team to hold them under 80 points twice. Count that as another moral victory. Then start counting the Titan losses:

- Forward Derek Jones went down in a pile near the Fullerton basket with 7:33 left in the first half. Jones was taken directly to the locker room, where he was diagnosed to have suffered a dislocated left shoulder. Further tests will be conducted today to determine if he will return this season.

- The Titans, who committed 17 turnovers in the first half the last time these teams met, had 24 in the rematch. Half of those were committed by point guards Alexander Hamilton and Eugene Jackson.

“I thought what they did defensively was a big factor,” McQuarn said. “Their defensive pressure caused turnovers, and they got points out of them. They’ve been playing like that all year.”

Still, with all the turnovers and misadventures in inbounding the ball, the Titans were in a position to throw a little drama into an otherwise ho-hum PCAA season. They took a five-point lead on Morton’s three-point shot with 15:26 to play, prompting Tarkanian to call a timeout to round up his Rebels for a run.

“After we went up by five and Tark called a timeout, I told the kids, ‘They’re gonna come after you,’ ” McQuarn said. “They have some dead spots and they kind of tease you, but then they spurt until they get control.”

In the five-plus minutes that followed the timeout, UNLV outscored the Titans, 20-9. Gilliam had 11 points in the spurt, including a fast-break slam that gave the Rebels a 60-52 lead with 9:05 to play.