COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENT : Rebels Make Seton Hall’s Talk Cheap : West Regional: UNLV begins second half with 14-0 surge in 77-65 victory over Pirates.

Why Nevada Las Vegas waited until the last 49 seconds to slip on its Final Four T-shirt and cap ensemble, no one will ever know. Courtesy, perhaps? A need to milk Saturday’s West Regional for all it was worth?

Truth is, the Rebels could have begun a wardrobe change 15 minutes earlier. By then, Seton Hall was a beaten team. The 77-65 final score merely made it official.

Coach Jerry Tarkanian can rest easy today. He planned to do just that now that his No. 1-ranked and still unbeaten Rebels handled the Pirates with unnerving ease and earned a second consecutive trip to the Final Four.

“I’m going to enjoy this and worry about who we’re going to play later,” a relieved Tarkanian said. “I’ll watch those other coaches suffer a little bit.”

Tarkanian knows this much:

--UNLV (34-0) will play the winner of today’s Midwest Regional final between St. John’s and Duke.

--Lord help the winner of the Midwest Regional.

Gone now are the ghosts of 1989, when Seton Hall beat the Rebels in the West Regionals. On Saturday, four of those five UNLV starters were on the Kingdome court, though not everyone appreciated the irony.

“I don’t know nothing about that history stuff,” said UNLV forward Larry Johnson, who was in junior college at the time. “This is history here.”

Or getting there. UNLV is two games from winning consecutive national championships, the first team to do so since UCLA accomplished the feat in 1973. And not since 1976, when Indiana did it, has a team gone undefeated.

For the first time since the tournament began, Tarkanian walked off the court grinning. What had been missing from UNLV’s attack during the last month--the intensity Tarkanian demands and craves from his team--had returned. He knew it. So did his players.

And so did Seton Hall, which entered the game dropping heavy hints of springing an upset.

Coach P.J. Carlesimo had gone so far to say that anything short of a Pirate victory would be an “enormous” disappointment. And Seton Hall forward Gordon Winchester had listed the reasons the Pirates would win, beginning with guard Terry Dehere and ending with center Anthony Avent, who, said Winchester, would have his way with anybody.

Now listen.

“We were just too intimidated,” Winchester said.

“They go for the jugular pretty good,” Carlesimo said. “And they don’t let go until they are satisfied.”

And this from Oliver Taylor: “They showed us definitely why they’re the No. 1 team in the country. I expect them to win the national championship.”

Who wouldn’t after what the Rebels did to Seton Hall in the first 4:13 of the second half? Ahead, 39-36, at halftime, UNLV devastated the Pirates with a 14-0 run, made possible by five forced turnovers and the efforts of Johnson and guard Greg Anthony.

Johnson, named the West Regional most outstanding player, finished with 30 points, 10 in that decisive onslaught.

“When the game got tight, we went to Larry,” Tarkanian said.

Anthony, the most underrated part of the UNLV lineup, scored only six points, but had 11 assists, five rebounds and five steals, two of them in those crucial 4 minutes 13 seconds.

How important is Anthony? After he picked up his third foul with 2:38 left in the half, the Rebels scored only one more basket--by Evric Gray, who followed an airball by UNLV guard Anderson Hunt and gave the Rebles a 39-36 halftime lead.

And Augmon had 13 points, four steals and two blocks. He held talented Seton Hall freshman Arturas Karnishovas to eight points.

“You sense that they’re confused, that you have them down,” Augmon said. “You’ve got to keep them down.”

Tarkanian was the most succinct. “Gawd, (Seton Hall) had a hard time getting it in (bounds),” he said.

The UNLV lead grew to 20 points with 6:34 left. After that, the Rebels began trimming time off the clock until they confirmed their reservations for Indianapolis, site of next week’s Final Four.

Seton Hall tried anything and everything to get the ball to Dehere and Avent, who had combined for 21 of the Pirates’ 36 points in the first half. Dehere had 12.

Only a three-pointer with 36 seconds remaining kept him from being shut out in the second half after scoring 26, 28 and 28 points in three previous tournament games.

Avent was good for only four more points.

If the Rebels are worried about what lies ahead, they didn’t show it. Johnson said something about being “relieved” with the victory, but that about did it for concern. Instead, Augmon’s outlook seemed to speak best for this team.

“If people keep running it at us,” he said, “we’ll keep knocking them off, too.”

Augmon could afford to talk this way. After all, he was bound for the Final Four.