NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : WEST REGIONAL NOTEBOOK : Little Is the Same as Foes Come Full Circle After Four Months

The confrontation was the first game of the season for both teams, and now, for one of them, it will be the last.

When Nevada Las Vegas and Loyola Marymount played in the Thomas & Mack Center Nov. 15, UNLV was playing without starting center David Butler and reserve forward Moses Scurry, both academically ineligible.

Loyola was playing the game with Hank Gathers, who scored 18 points and had 11 rebounds. This time the Lions are playing in his memory.

The past four months have brought so many changes to these teams that UNLV Coach Jerry Tarkanian says the Rebels’ 102-91 victory in a preseason NIT game no longer has much significance in today’s West Regional final. But the players remember it.

Larry Johnson was playing his first major-college game that day, and he became winded against the Lions’ all-out, scrambling running game.

“I was tugging on those shorts more than since I’ve been here,” said Johnson, whose first shot as a Division I player was blocked by Gathers.

UNLV won by outshooting Loyola, 54% to 47%, and by going to a zone defense in the second half. The zone slowed Loyola’s offense, limiting the Lions to 37 points in the final 20 minutes--a season low until Friday’s 62-60 victory over Alabama.

The Rebels won by not abandoning their own running game, and they say they will not do that this time.

“We’re not going to slow the game up,” Tarkanian said. “We did run against them and we’ll run again. I don’t think we want to get in a race-horse game, because they play that way every time they’re on the court. We’re going to play the way we play.”

Neither Bo Kimble nor Gathers had a particularly good game against UNLV. Kimble scored only 21 points on seven-of-17 shooting, and missed all four of his three-point shots.

“It was early in the season, and I don’t think I was playing the way I am now,” Kimble said. “I think I’ll be able to do what I’ve been doing all year.”

Jeff Fryer led Loyola in scoring with 23 points, making only four three-point shots in 10 attempts.

Anderson Hunt led UNLV, scoring 26 points and making three three-pointers, and Johnson added 24 points. But Hunt has been in a slump, making only two of 14 three-point shots in the NCAA tournament.

Loyola’s Paul Westhead, asked how he would coach against his own team, offered specious advice: “I’d play real fast. I’d push that ball, burn our guys right out, because we win slow, as you saw last night (during the victory over Alabama).”

Tarkanian acknowledged that his team isn’t as well conditioned as Westhead’s.

“For years I said no one would work as hard as we do and nobody would be in better shape,” Tarkanian said.

“We’re not in as good condition as Loyola and I’ll be the first to admit it.”

Westhead says his team is better and faster than in the first game.

“I think we’re an immensely faster team now,” he said.

“One thing I’ve learned about my system the past two years is we are totally unprepared to be a fast-break team until we’ve played about six games. We need six games under our belt to be a running and pressing team.”

Tarkanian, in a complimentary assessment of the Loyola team, said he was surprised that Loyola beat New Mexico State in the first round, more surprised that Loyola beat Michigan in the second round, and more surprised still that Loyola beat Alabama in the third round.

Said Kimble: “The world is full of surprises. There are lot of people out there who are really surprised. Hopefully, he’ll be surprised again Sunday.”

Loyola’s Chris Knight compared UNLV’s Johnson to a boxer susceptible to tiring in the late rounds, saying that he was strong in the first three rounds, but beatable after eight.

Johnson’s response: “I’ll compare me to a boxer, too. When I was boxing, I didn’t go past the third round. Knockout.”

Notes

Hank Gathers is being remembered by both teams. The UNLV players have worn black bands on a shoulder of their jerseys since Gathers’ death at the suggestion of Stacey Augmon, who played with Gathers on a Cal State Los Angeles summer league team.

Bo Kimble’s 1,089 points this season place him 10th on the all-time list led by Pete Maravich’s 1,381 for Louisiana State in 1970. Kimble will pass Otis Birdsong of Houston with his next basket, and is 36 points shy of Hersey Hawkins’ mark of 1,125 for Bradley in 1988, the sixth best Jeff Fryer has set a tournament record for three-point attempts with 81. He is one basket away from tying the record of 35 three-pointers set by Michigan’s Glen Rice last season. . . . UNLV’s NCAA tournament record under Coach Jerry Tarkanian is 23-10. . . . Only one team seeded 11th, as Loyola is, has ever made it to the Final Four: Louisiana State in 1986.