UNLV Holds Off Utah State; Game Played Without Incident

Larry Johnson scored 18 of his 31 points in the second half as No. 2 Nevada Las Vegas held off Utah State, 84-82, in a Big West game Thursday night.

When the teams played Feb. 1 in Las Vegas, the game ended in a brawl and UNLV’s Chris Jeter and Moses Scurry were suspended. Extra security was used Thursday night, but there were no incidents.

The Rebels (25-5, 15-2) led most of the way, but Utah State (14-14, 8-9) closed within two on Darrel White’s three-point goal with 25 seconds remaining. Utah State had four shots in the final eight seconds--including two three-point attempts--but missed all of them.

Johnson scored five points as UNLV broke to a 14-4 lead. Utah State, which made seven of 11 three-point attempts, got two three-pointers from Rich Jardine in a 16-2 run that gave the Aggies their only lead of the game, 37-36, with 3:35 left in the first half. David Butler then scored four points in a 6-2 UNLV spurt that made it 42-39 at halftime.

Utah State, which has lost 17 in a row to UNLV since the series began in 1982, stayed close early in the second half, but the Rebels staged a 9-2 run and took their biggest lead of the second half, 72-64, on Greg Anthony’s driving layup with 8:11 left.

The Aggies staged a 12-5 spurt of their own and pulled to 77-76 on Kendall Youngblood’s three-point goal with 1:48 remaining. Anthony then made UNLV’s only three-point goal of the game for an 80-76 lead with 1:26 left.

UNLV missed 12 of 13 shots from three-point range and shot just 28 of 71 overall for 39.4%.

Butler added 24 points for UNLV. Youngblood scored 19 for Utah State.