Distracted UNLV Beats Irvine : Colleges: Rebels take advantage of 28 turnovers to win, 96-74. Anteaters’ tournament berth comes down to last game.

Nevada Las Vegas is ranked 16th in the nation and on its way to the NCAA tournament, but the Rebels were without some of their usual aura Thursday night during much of their 96-74 victory over UC Irvine in the Bren Center.

After losing to New Mexico State by two points Monday, UNLV (20-5, 13-4) is in second place in the Big West Conference and has lost four conference games in a season for the first time.

Jerry Tarkanian was in the stands, not on the bench, and for a rare occasion, there were plenty of seats for a UNLV appearance that drew 4,252.

For much of the game against the Anteaters, who have won only six games all season, UNLV’s players seemed more intent on working on their statistics than playing with purpose.

Maybe it was because the Rebels beat Irvine so easily in December, 115-97. But UNLV allowed the Anteaters to recover from a 12-point halftime deficit to lurk uncomfortably close into the second half, when Irvine trailed by only four, 51-47, with 14:36 to play.

At that point, though, the inevitable happened. An 8-0 run fueled by Dexter Boney’s three-point shot and three-point play on a breakaway layup put UNLV up by 12, and the rout was on.

Boney scored 24 points and Evric Gray had 23, but UNLV was led by J.R. Rider, who finished with 34. Rider made the lead 23 when he followed a three-pointer with a flying one-handed dunk. The score was 76-53. Irvine, which had been outscored, 25-6, called time out--a fitting acknowledgment that the contest was over.

The victory gave UNLV its 12th consecutive 20-win season.

“To get the magic number is terrific,” UNLV Coach Rollie Massimino said.

Irvine (6-19, 4-13) has yet to lose 20, but has one regular-season game left.

“I tried reminding our guys that this is the 16th team in the country, and nobody will know when they look at the score that it was respectable for much of the game,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said.

Irvine had expected it might be without leading scorer Jeff Von Lutzow because of a foot injury. Instead, Von Lutzow played after making surprising progress overnight, but the team was without second-leading scorer Keith Stewart. Stewart was suspended for the second time in two weeks because of a situation affecting his academic eligibility.

But Stewart was ably replaced by Todd Whitehead, a freshman from Los Angeles Fremont High School, who scored a career-high 19 points and made five of eight three-pointers.

“He stepped up,” Baker said. Whitehead had 11 in the first half, and was slightly less effective in the second. “He’s going to be a very, very good player as he gets older and stronger.”

In the first half, UNLV led by only three after 10 minutes, but jumped ahead to lead by 12 at halftime, 43-31, partly by making seven steals as Irvine turned the ball over 15 times.

The Anteaters finished with 28 turnovers, tying their season-high.

“We had a very, very good game defensively to create (28) turnovers,” Massimino said.

Irvine cut the 12-point lead to four in the first five minutes of the second half, taking advantage of a spate of UNLV turnovers.

Irvine, which played a lot of trapping defenses, crawled back into it and cut the lead to four on a three-pointer by Von Lutzow, who scored 13 points.

“They kind of were lackadaisical with the ball, and we went after them,” Baker said.

After that, Baker said, “some old problems crept up on us at times.”

“We didn’t close out hard enough on Rider. It was as if he decided he hadn’t scored in a while, so he needed to score a bunch quick. He did.”

Irvine’s hopes of making the eight-team Big West Conference tournament have come down to the final game of the season. The Anteaters are tied with San Jose State for eighth, and are in position to go because they swept San Jose State.

The only way San Jose State can go is if it can combine a Spartan victory over UC Santa Barbara on Saturday with an Irvine loss to New Mexico State on Saturday.