February 1, 2007

Bob McClellan
Rivals.com College Basketball Staff Writer

Rivals.com video player
? Top 25 Scoreboard
? Power rankings
? College Basketball Wire

---

Get the inside scoop on your favorite team:

College Teams Alabama Arizona Arizona State Arkansas Army Auburn Baylor Boise State Boston College BYU Cal Charlotte Cincinnati Clemson Colorado Connecticut Dayton DePaul Duke Duquesne East Carolina Florida Florida State Georgetown Georgia Georgia Tech Houston Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa State Kansas Kansas State Kentucky Louisville LSU Marquette Marshall Maryland Memphis Miami Michigan Michigan State Middle Tennessee Minnesota Mississippi St. Missouri NC State Nebraska New Mexico North Carolina Northwestern Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma Oklahoma St. Ole Miss Oregon Oregon State Penn State Pittsburgh Purdue Richmond Rutgers San Diego State Seton Hall South Carolina Southern Miss Syracuse Temple Tennessee Texas Texas A&M Texas Tech Tulane Tulsa UAB UCF UCLA UNLV USC UCF USF Utah UTEP Vanderbilt Villanova Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest Washington Washington St. WCU West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Xavier

Welcome back, stranger.

UNLV returned to the national rankings this week for the first time since the end of the 1993 season, when Rollie Massimino was coach. They popped in at 25th in the coaches' poll, tied with Indiana. The Rebels are 19-4, and they're on a five-game winning streak.

The current coach is Lon Kruger, who's in his third year in Vegas after stops at Kansas State, Florida and Illinois. His top players include leading scorer Wendell White, sophomore shooting guard and former Rivals five-star prospect Wink Adams, and Kruger's son, Kevin.

"The people here are really excited, and the players have worked hard to be in this position," Kruger told Rivals.com. "Wink has been very consistent, and Wendell has played well until he got a little banged up recently. We've had a lot of different guys step up, a lot of different heroes I guess you could say."

The victories have brought the crowds back to the Thomas & Mack Center. UNLV had its largest attendance figure (17,056) since Dec. 27, 1997, on Saturday night against New Mexico. The Rebels won 76-72 in overtime thanks to four free throws down the stretch by Adams. They followed that up with a road win at Colorado State in the return of Kevin Kruger, who had missed the past four games after suffering a bruised thigh in the opening minutes of UNLV's last loss, at Wyoming on Jan. 10.

Kevin Kruger took advantage of the brief NCAA loophole that allowed players who graduated early to transfer and play immediately. He left Arizona State after his junior season to play for his father for the first time.

"It has been really great to have Kevin," Lon Kruger said. "The tough part is that he has been injured quite a bit. First it was a high ankle sprain, then the thigh bruise. He really wants to play."

UNLV puts its ranking on the line at Mountain West rival Brigham Young on Saturday. The Cougars have a 27-game home winning streak, so it won't be easy. The last team to beat them in Provo was UNLV two years ago.

Consider this about the MWC: It has more teams in the top 15 in the RPI (UNLV at No. 9 and Air Force at No. 14) than the SEC and the Big East.

CONFERENCE UNBEATENS DWINDLE

Three teams that had been unbeaten in conference play lost on Wednesday night, reducing the number of conference unbeatens to seven.

The biggest team to falter was Wisconsin. The second-ranked Badgers fell 71-66 at Indiana, and the loss dropped them into a tie for first in the Big Ten standings with Ohio State.

Also suffering their first league losses Wednesday night were Colonial Athletic Association leader Virginia Commonwealth, which got waylaid by second-place Hofstra, and Mid-American West front runner Toledo, which got smacked by MAC East foe Ohio.

Top-ranked Florida remained unbeaten in SEC play after a brief scare from Vanderbilt. The Gators trailed by 11 at the half before rallying for a resounding 74-64 triumph.

The other teams perfect in league play: Holy Cross (Patriot League), Memphis (Conference USA), Oral Roberts (Mid-Continent Conference), Penn (Ivy League), Texas A&M Corpus Christi (Southland Conference) and Winthrop (Big South).

Notre Dame became the first visiting team to top the century mark at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse since West Virginia did it on Dec. 4, 1996.

The hot-shooting Irish rang up 61 first-half points en route to a 103-91 victory. They hit 11 3-pointers, including 10 in the first 20 minutes. Notre Dame even played without its second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Rob Kurz, who missed the game with a sprained ankle.

The 61 points in the opening stanza were just four short of the most ever given up by a Syracuse team. That occurred in the 1986 NCAA Tournament, when David Robinson-led Navy beat the Orangemen 97-85. Robinson outscored Syracuse center Rony Seikaly 35-4.

POTHOLES APLENTY:

The road has been especially unkind to Georgia Tech, which lost its 17th consecutive road game Tuesday night at Wake Forest.

The Yellow Jackets missed out on perhaps their best chance to end the streak. The Demon Deacons entered the game on a six-game losing streak.

The loss dropped Tech to 13-8 overall, 2-6 in the ACC, with road games remaining against Florida State, Duke and Virginia. The combined home record of those three teams? 37-3.